It's about the amount of cash required to get into private banking here.... It can be 1 milion$ or 2 milion$ elsewhere, I don't know, but I was just trying to make a distinction between 'the rich' and the ultra rich.
500k in this day and age is actually pretty damn good especially if you've managed to keep that amount without having tons of debts to pay off.
Lack of time , lack of knowledge, no desire to learn, trust in the "experts"and of course not wanting the responsibility/worries for the losses . Weatlhy people are for the most part not any smarter than regular people , especially when it comes to investing their money. A lot of wealth comes from luck, they were good at something and happened to make a lot of money. As for wealthy bankers, why don't they retire and trade for their own account ? They are caught up in the rat race, must keep up with the Jones and know that the odds are stacked against you as a trader, the steady and fat paycheck is a no brainer. 500 K will get you into private banking, almost everywhere question is , is it worth the cost ? No. But what makes you really rich ? according to the industry: 1 Mio is wealthy 5 Mio is HNW 50 Mio + is UHNW (Ultra high net worth)
my dad once used the argument to me- i can work my ass off all year following every piece of detail i can to hopefully make 10%, or i can pay a professional 1% to hopefully make 11% while i sleep easy.
Until the till is empty. Look at all the stories about people losing everything because it turns out the advisor stole your cash. ie: Madoff etc.. It is one thing to outsource shit like lawn mowing etc.. but once your wealth is gone, it is gone. Maybe my mindset is different who knows but I was not handed money or came from a well off family so it took lots of work to get where I am today and the last thing I will do is just go and hand someone my wealth and assume it is safe.
that's why you put it with 10 dif people, so that worst case scenario you are out 20-30% if 2-3 are schemes. but it is far from the norm to lose your money due to fraud- i wouldn't worry too much about the 17 people on tv who had all their money with madoff, that was irresponsible investing on their part. we all laugh at people who use too much leverage to their own demise, putting all of your money with one person is the same.
I've been watching some of the companies that have been failing in this recession and it's actually quite shocking to see how many of them really deserved it. There are even complete scumbags out there who would rather cut out their low level employees even if they've been working there for years if it means that they can still keep their stupidly high salaries. If you're stupid enough to hand your money over to people that don't know any better or just want to take it then you're clearly too stupid to be rich and manage large amounts of money.