U.S. millionaires say $7 million not enough to be rich

[cory777]

Source: Reuters

More than four out of ten American millionaires say they do not feel rich. Indeed many would need to have at least $7.5 million in order to feel they were truly rich, according to a Fidelity Investments survey.

Some 42 percent of the more than 1,000 millionaires surveyed by Fidelity said they did not feel wealthy. Respondents had at least $1 million in investable assets, excluding any real estate or retirement accounts.

"Every person in the survey is wealthy," said Sanjiv Mirchandani, president of National Financial, a unit of Fidelity. "But they are still worried about outliving their assets."

The average age of respondents was 56 years old with a mean of $3.5 million of investable assets. The threshold for "rich" rose with age.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110314/lf_nm_life/us_fidelity_survey

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Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com/

[liberal N proud]

1. I will gladly trade places with these ungrateful bastards

In fact I would take 1/7th of what they say isn't enough.


They want it all and they want it now! Poor bastards.

[okieinpain]

2. that's right, you've got to have enough on hand so you can

build a house that rotates like a merry-go-round. once you can blow money like that then you're probably rich.

[DeSwiss]

3. In the bible story......

...the ones who bitched they didn't have enough ended up having their shit taken away.

- I know it was only a parable, but keep a happy thought......


K&R

[Historic NY]

4. Those poor bastards.........scrimping for every thin dime.

[BeyondGeography]

5. Losers

Get a fucking life already.

[hifiguy]

6. These people are swine

plain and simple.

[paulkienitz]

22. no, they're scared

A million dollars was, before the housing bubble popped, about the minimum to retire young with a middle class lifestyle. Assuming that the economy remained nice and stable, which not so many people are willing to assume over a decades-long timespan. Either way, it wasn't enough to be truly "rich", which I would define as being able to live lavishly without working. I'd say the threshold for that has long been more in the $3-$5M range even before things got more, um, exciting in the financial markets. With one or two million, you can live lavishly OR you can quit worrying about making additional money, but you can't do both.

And even that assumes stability. Lemme put it this way: if I had $3 million but not $7 million, knowing that we're probably going to be facing issues like peak oil or icecap melting within my remaining lifetime... I wouldn't feel very comfortable living it up and spending my money. That's not enough cushion to be carefree with it. Having that degree of cushion is how I would define being "rich".

[Kennah]

7. $7 million is so 20th Century

[Citizen Worker]

8. This revelation must mean that states with lotteries will raise the jackpot to a minimum of $7.5

million, right?

[gkhouston]

9. LOL, I recently got some spam phishing for my bank account info, saying I'd won $7M.

Guess I wasn't fake rich after all.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

24. We still await your responses, kindly

We here at First Nocturnal Bank of Lagos await details from your banking accounts, so that we may deposit some of the seven millions you are fortunate to have been selected receiving.

[shanti]

10. outliving their assets??

the nerve!

[Maeve]

11. Gimme half that! I'll call myself rich

Hell, most of my financial woes for life would be ended with $100,000 about now...(and I'm just shy of the average age of those fat cats...)

[buddysmellgood]

12. They are absolutely correct. Relative to the rich, these millionaires are simply well off.

So let's start with that and tax everyone who makes more than $5 million.

[Moostache]

13. MAy they all be stricken with grief unimaginable to the mind that believes that tripe!

I have zero use for these people and zero care for their supposed plight of not being "rich" with fortunes nearly a factor of 10 greater than the LIFETIME EARNINGS OF A LABORER MAKING $30,000 a year (45 years of labor at $30,000 would be less than $2M in a lifetime of work - and as anyone working for a living knows, the concept of a raise is nothing more than a rumor over the last 30 years...)


I will gladly trade positions with them (and I DO feel somewhat lucky even though my wife and I COMBINED earn less than $100,000 a year and are raising five children)!

I said it before, and I believe more after reading that nonsense - one of the major problems in America is that so many people remain obsessed with looking UP the ladder to determine who has MORE than they do that they completely miss the fact that there are so many MORE that are BELOW them and are being trampled in the race to get more more more more more more more....

There are so many things so very wrong in our nation and in our national priorities that its depressing to really think about, but if I could change only one it would be this attitude that too much is never enough and that the only way to "security" is to have a personal fortune of 8 figures or more. If we only did away with that kind of thinking and replaced it with a spirit of unity and citizenship responsibility, then many of out other problems would no longer seem so daunting.

[kjackson227]

14. I could take care of my family, my sister's family, and my...

ex with $7M. If these losers can't live off $7M then they don't deserve to live.

[GReedDiamond]

15. The rich are so downtrodden...

...that they don't know that they're rich! It's Class Warfare!!

Poor rich babies...

[bigpenguin]

16. I feel like we should help in some way.

Let's organize a benefit for these poor people.

[JackRiddler]

25. Washington and 50 state capitals have already organized that benefit.

[LiberalFighter]

17. Worried about outliving their assests?

How about if they reduce the number of homes they own? Or downsize their homes so maintenance is reduced and pay less in property taxes?

[Crowman1979]

18. Hell I could live off half of the yearly interests for the rest of my life and give the other...

...to charitable organizations.

[TalkingDog]

19. 2 words: Fuck you, you sons-a-bitches

nt

[ieoeja]

20. This is nothing new. "Land rich and dirt poor," has been used to described family farmers forever.

I have two choices:

1. Sell the farm to pad my retirement.
2. Save it til I can pass it on to my kid, and keep working paycheck to paycheck.

According to several posts upthread, option 2 is selfish, and option 1 is not. Seems kind of backwards to me.


And liquidating is not always an option, even if desirable.

A couple decades ago massive amounts of farms went up for sell where I grew up because of new estimates on their values. The estimates were accurate, if you split the farms up into housing developments. Now all you needed was a sudden influx of millions of people to buy up the entire countryside!

Wasn't going to happen. So no farms got sold.

Yes, they have assets valued in the millions. But nobody wants to buy them. In reality, they have jobs off the farm where they work paycheck to paycheck. I know factory workers, postal employees, construction workers, prison guards, etc who fall into this category.

"Land rich and dirt poor," is a very old and very good way of describing these people.


For me, none of that happens to be true. My sister is money rich and land poor! So she wants to buy the farm. But then I'm back to the question of which is more selfish: taking the money for myself, or holding on to the farm for my kid?

I am leaning towards a compromise. Sell enough to help me, keep enough for the kid as a "hobby" farm. I seriously doubt he plans on becoming a farmer (I grew up a farmer, but am now just a farm owner).

[aquart]

21. These people are insufficiently taxed.

[sarcasmo]

23. They are NUTS! if u have a million of investable assets you are rich.