On Being Wealthy

This is the age of greed and envy, one in which the have nots are so jealous of the haves that they think they are entitled to a chunk of the millionaires money because....well.... jealousy breeds greed and envy. Here President Obama used to center many of his campaigns on the false narrative that the "rich" are stealing money from the poor. It's bad news for those who work hard and earn large sums of money.  And where are most of those millionaires located?

In the United States, they are in New York City.  If you were to chuck everybody who wasn't a millionaire out of New York City, the city would still have a higher population than my former home of New Orleans. That is according to a study by Spear's magazine  that says that 4.63% of NYC's population have assets of $1 million or more when the total excludes their homes. That adds up to 389,100 millionaires, slightly more people than New Orleans (which lost a huge chunk of it's population after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the city).

But even so, New York has the fourth highest proportion of millionaire residents in the world.  You can barely move around Monaco without tripping over millionaires, who make up 29% of the population, while Zurich is at 27% and Geneva 18%.  Given their smaller populations though they have far fewer millionaires than NYC. New York  has the second largest millionaire and largest billionaire population of any city in the world.  But according to total numbers of millionaires, not percentage of the population, jealous millionaire haters can complain more about Tokyo first. It has the largest total number of millionaires in the world. London has the third most.

Many of the jealous "poor" crowd envies and hates the well today and sees them as the stereotype of the fat cat Obama and other demagogue politicians portray.  But of course, the wealth put on their pants the same way as the poor. They each wear only one pair and each are far more similar than different. In fact, unlike the have nots, the haves think about money far less than their jealous wanna be poorer humans.. According to financial advisory groups, American millionaires with a net worth up to $25 million rank their spouse's health as their number one concern. It is those who are not yet but have a chance to be millionaires, the merely affluent, with $100,000 to $1 million in net worth, that are most concerned about keeping up their current financial position.  

Strange that in America you are allowed be rich, but not too rich. Once you pass that imaginary rich line you become a four letter word.  I guess in this age one can succeed in life but not too much.