Fox: Solid U.S. economic growth helped create 600K new millionaires in '04

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Some 600,000 Worldwide Became Millionaires in 2004
Thursday, June 09, 2005

NEW YORK — A strong global economy gave 600,000 people an entree last year into a highly envied group: the world's millionaires.

The annual World Wealth Report (search), released Thursday by Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. (MER) and the Capgemini Group (search) consulting firm, found that there were 8.3 million people worldwide with $1 million or more in financial assets at the end of 2004, up from 7.7 million a year earlier.

Their total wealth rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion in 2004, giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world's financial assets, according to Petrina Dolby, vice president of Capgemini's wealth management practice.

The 8.2 percent increase was the strongest since an identical 8.2 percent rise in 1999, she said. Not surprisingly, the expansion of the millionaire class was especially strong in North America because of the solid economic growth last year in both the United States and Canada. "Significantly, North America surpassed Europe both in total high net worth individuals population and wealth for the first time since 2001," when North American investors were hard-hit by the bursting of the technology stock bubble and the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The Asia-Pacific region also showed strong growth.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159047,00.html

[Sandpiper]

1. The rich got richer

What a surprise.

[AX10]

5. But in "Fox News Channel World" it's the wealthy and powerful...

that count. The working class is nothing to them. No one at Fox "News" has ever seen a regular working class person. So for them (Fox), millioniares getting wealthier is a sign of "progress" for them.

[htuttle]

2. How many 'new poor people' were created in 2004?

A hell of a lot more than 600,000 of them. More like a half-billion of them would be my guess.

on edit:

Since the definition of 'millionaire' they are using is denominated in US Dollars, wouldn't the falling dollar 'create' many new Euro-based millionaires from that mechanism alone? In other words, if somebody had the same number of Euros in 2003 and 2004, they would appear richer in US dollars in 2004, because the dollar lost value.

By that same route, I guess I'm a 'millionaire' if you're looking at my net worth in pesos...

[Beaverhausen]

4. children in poverty went from 4% to 13% in shrub's first term

yeah...things are going just great! :eyes:

[samsingh]

10. that's an excellent question

[blm]

3. A great economy for the wealthy ONLY. The working class is getting SCREWED

so the wealthy can make gains.

[norml]

6. Inflation helped create 600K new millionaires in '04

And how many more people are now living below the poverty level?

[plcdude]

7. this is an excellent example

of unbalance. Responsible reporting would cover the growth or decline in economic sectors and let the readers think about what that means. This is spin that attempts to validate a robust economy. How many people were added to or subtracted from the poverty roles. This is like reporting averages without a sense of the standard deviation.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. I Don't Believe It

I'll have to get the raw data on that. That's a very difficult result to accept. One in every 10,000 people on the planet that wasn't already a millionaire became one? Sorry, but i don't buy it. And given the source, i think it's even more likely to be in error.
The Professor

[tex-wyo-dem]

9. 600K shiny new millionaires created....

on the backs of millions and millions of poor and middle class.

[fasttense]

11. Those stats don't make much sense but

right before the great depression we had lots of millionaires. Not necessarily a good sign for the economy. A strong middle class is the only thing that can save a bad economy.