STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 22 October 2014

[tclambert]

31. The super-rich are as miserable as the rest of us

Let’s agree right off the bat that $25 million is a lot of money. Sure, to paraphrase Chris Rock (NSFW), if Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with a net worth of $25 million, he’d jump out a window. But to the vast majority of us, it’s a huge sum, more than enough to make some dreams come true. If money can’t buy happiness, $25 million should at least be enough for a down payment on contentment — and to generate some envy on the part of us without eight figures in assets.

Well, get ready to get jealous, if only for a moment. The number of American households with a net worth of $25 million or more — excluding their home — reached a new record last year, according to a recent report by wealth management research provider Spectrem Group.

Yet the same survey found that those wealthy Americans still have plenty of financial concerns. Actually, they sound fairly miserable…and that’s in a survey taken well before the stock market took a tumble last week. They may travel more, go to ballgames or concerts, or buy nice jewelry, but 70 percent of those surveyed said they get more satisfaction out of saving and investing their money than from spending it. More than half said they worry about the next generation wasting the money they inherit. And almost a quarter (23 percent) said they worry “constantly” — constantly — about their financial situation.
_________________________________

from: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/super-rich-miserable-rest-us-101500097.html

What a laugh. I quoted this for the humor value. And I wonder if Republicans and their media whores are really trying to push this idea that "Hey, things are tough for rich people, too." It must be very embarrassing for them that with only $25 million have to settle for the small yacht.

Another line that made me laugh and made me mad at the same time: Roughly nine out of 10 wealthy households attribute their success to hard work, and about eight in 10 credit education, while just over half credit “luck” or “being in the right place at the right time.” It never ceases to amaze me that people who make hundreds of times the average income of working class people think they work SO HARD that it justifies making hundreds of times the income. The poll apparently did not ask how many of these wealthy people got a head start by getting born to wealthy families. Studies have shown that rich parents still by far makes the best predictor of who will become wealthy.