10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You • Hacker News Board

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#91

Post by JoelSutherland » Sat, Aug 30, 2008, 4:54 AM UTC

ambition wrote: post #54

JoelSutherland wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_middle_class#Income 10 Million households have $1 million+. There are an estimated 111,162,259 households in the US... This is upper class wealth...just not completely elite levels of wealth. I think the point of the article is that people with upper class levels of wealth tend to have upper-middle class lifestyles.

This is really an argument of semantics of "upper-middle-class" vs. "upper-class." Maybe there's standard definition I don't know about. My personal definition is that upper class is "don't need to work ever again." You're right that upper middle class people have the same lifestyles as upper class. The difference isn't in material goods, it's in freedom.

But not having to work again is tied directly to consumption along with income.

The interesting component of the article was that the average income of somebody with $1 million of net worth was approaching $400,000. This implies a poor savings rate and not very much savings at all.

If freedom is the goal, it seems the key component is a modest lifestyle.

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#92

Post by yters » Sat, Aug 30, 2008, 7:01 AM UTC

sah wrote: post #43

timr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was a fairly inane point. While I have no doubt that Joe Millionaire feels like he's not rich if he can't buy a new Lotus without blinking, that's pretty much irrelevant to any practical discussion of wealth. When your income places you well into the top 1% of earners and you're still hurting for cash, that's your problem. Learn to live within your means.

I think the clearest line between rich and not is whether you have to work to earn a living. In my book, if you're an "earner" at all, you're not rich yet.

I think it's both not working to earn a living and what a person can easily afford to do.

I say this because I don't think one needs a lot of money to not need to earn a living.

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#93

Post by shiranaihito » Sat, Aug 30, 2008, 2:45 PM UTC

lurch wrote: post #86

linhir wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, as a percentage, what subset of all rich people actually earned their money through technology? Either way, if those people aren't leveraging their home equity, than they don't know much about finance, truth be told. Assume you have good credit and a steady income or assets; there is absolutely no reason to own your house outright. Bill Gates, for example, has a mortgage on his house. The easier way to think abo…

Where can one get 7% risk free return?

Maybe a Swiss bank account?

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#94

Post by sah » Sat, Aug 30, 2008, 8:00 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #92

sah wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the clearest line between rich and not is whether you have to work to earn a living. In my book, if you're an "earner" at all, you're not rich yet.

I think it's both not working to earn a living and what a person can easily afford to do. I say this because I don't think one needs a lot of money to not need to earn a living.

Sure, whether you need to work to earn a living depends on the standard of living and risk level you're comfortable with. But I think it's possible to set a reasonable upper bound. Say, around the point where your interest income at a typical risk-free rate, after reinvestment to keep pace with inflation, would put you among the highest earners in the world if it were ordinary income. Defining "highest earners" as those in the top two US tax brackets, that amount is currently around $8-10M, or on the order of 2^23 present-day dollars.

Personally I think on the order of 2^22 dollars reasonably qualifies as well. Maybe that's because of the standard of living I'm used to. Certainly if you have 2^24 dollars and you don't think you're rich, you have a definition of wealth that ignores a major qualitative difference in what a person can afford to do. Above 2^23 dollars, I think additional wealth begins to put you more in the realm of the low-level aristocracy and rulers than the merely rich.

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#95

Post by menloparkbum » Sat, Aug 30, 2008, 8:07 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #44

A lot of this is wrong. For example, no one rich would "leverage their home equity to finance purchases." And though rich people often have assistants, they're not drawn from a special guild of "concierges" with connections for getting restaurant reservations. Nor would anyone rich rent handbags or Ferraris. The parts that aren't false read like a description of someone who made money from e.g. developing shopping ma…

I have been dating someone in the PR biz and these "top 10" style articles are a new PR vehicle. You can pack 10 or more client mentions into one article.

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#96

Post by timr » Sat, Aug 30, 2008, 8:13 PM UTC

sah wrote: post #43

timr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was a fairly inane point. While I have no doubt that Joe Millionaire feels like he's not rich if he can't buy a new Lotus without blinking, that's pretty much irrelevant to any practical discussion of wealth. When your income places you well into the top 1% of earners and you're still hurting for cash, that's your problem. Learn to live within your means.

I think the clearest line between rich and not is whether you have to work to earn a living. In my book, if you're an "earner" at all, you're not rich yet.

That's just begging the question -- if your income is in the top 1% of all earners, and you still "have to work for a living", then you're pretty clearly not living within your means.

It's quite obvious that the definition of the word "rich" is relative, and subjectively defined. Yet everyone seems to focus on that relativity as if it's some huge, meaningful insight. It isn't. At the end of the day, if you're earning more than 99% of everyone around you, and you still can't pay your bills? That means that you're doing it wrong.

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#97

Post by pg » Sun, Aug 31, 2008, 6:25 AM UTC

menloparkbum wrote: post #95

pg wrote: post #44

A lot of this is wrong. For example, no one rich would "leverage their home equity to finance purchases." And though rich people often have assistants, they're not drawn from a special guild of "concierges" with connections for getting restaurant reservations. Nor would anyone rich rent handbags or Ferraris. The parts that aren't false read like a description of someone who made money from e.g. developing shopping ma…

I have been dating someone in the PR biz and these "top 10" style articles are a new PR vehicle. You can pack 10 or more client mentions into one article.

Seems a likely theory. Probably the bits that seem wrong are the client mentions.

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#98

Post by fallentimes » Sun, Aug 31, 2008, 2:59 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #44

A lot of this is wrong. For example, no one rich would "leverage their home equity to finance purchases." And though rich people often have assistants, they're not drawn from a special guild of "concierges" with connections for getting restaurant reservations. Nor would anyone rich rent handbags or Ferraris. The parts that aren't false read like a description of someone who made money from e.g. developing shopping ma…

Why would rich people not rent Ferraris?

Re: 10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

#99

Post by lsemel » Mon, Sep 08, 2008, 3:24 AM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #13

IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #5

You may think I'm rich, but I don't. How very very true that is. I have friends that make less than half what I do. Once upon a time, I would have thought that my current income would mean I'd "made it". But somehow, here I am, still occasionally concerned about being overdrawn, still trying to be frugal, still feeling like I don't make enough to do all the things I want to do. By world standards, I was fantastically…

all things are relative. You can be the smartest person in your state, but not the country. You can be the smartest person in the country, but not the world. Same thing with wealth, you may be a millionaire but there are MILLIONS other people who are richer than you.

Everything is relative. No matter what you have, there is always someone with more. If you have $1 million, there's someone with $10. If you have $10 million, there's someone with $100. If you have $100 million, there are billionaires. And if you're the richest of the billionaires, there will still be people who are better looking, healthier, younger, and happier whom you can feel inferior to.