Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The Shy Millionaires

In response to my last post on taxation, there are a few of you who feel that "rich" people, those making over $500,000 a year, should be hit with extremely high taxes. One commenter mentioned that many of the people he knows inherited money or found a "rich trophy wife " (Huh, where are these rich trophy wives?). Another commenter at Megan McArdle's blog referred to those with over $500,000 in income as "fat cats," who don't work:

I'm not ideologically opposed to taxing wealth, mainly because I know a lot of fat cats that aren't working. But it seems to me that there's no pragmatic way (or at least, not one we've discovered yet) to penalize them without also hitting a lot of people who are working.


In his book, Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes pollster Mark Penn describes the trend of the "shy millionaire" as Americans who live below their means. He states that we have a bit of a skewed perception about American wealth:


According to recent surveys, most Americans think there are far more millionaires in America than there really are--by about 4-fold. A survey done in the late 1990's--when only about 4 percent of households had net assets over $1 million--showed that the public believed that 15 percent of households were that rich. (Today there are 9 million people in America worth $1 million or more, exclusive of their homes.)

...According to the authors of the best-selling book, The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy,the average millionaire in America went to public school, drives an American made car (and not this year's model), and received zero {my italics} inheritance.

...he isn't interested in telling you how much money he has. Most millionaires would not be caught dead in a limo. It is the antithesis of what they believe in...


Penn describes six different types of millionaires (I won't go into all the types here) with the most prevalent group being the most quiet--the Satisfied Savers--these people are made up of welding contractors, pharmacists, pest controllers, etc. The Satisfied Savers are those millionaires who have worked hard, saved much, and lived below their means.

Penn makes a very good point about why "class warfare" polemics rarely win in American politics:

Promising to give the rich their comeuppance on behalf of the "little guy" has its shortcomings when many Americans believe that they, too, can be millionaires. Class warfare language directed at people who have worked hard to get where they are is a very unpredictable way to talk to American voters. It is quite different in Britain, where privilege is presumed to be behind success, but in America, equal opportunity is one of our most cherished values.



So rather than a bunch of "fat cats," most millionaires are just the opposite: people who worked, lived below their means and saved a lot of money. Or as one politician put it, people who "worked hard and played by the rules." All of us could learn from them. Jealous that they have not achieved this level of wealth, now many controlling types of people are scheming to take money from others through high tax rates that penalize the "shy millionaire" as much as the real "fat cats," whatever that means. Instead of scheming like a bunch of thugs, perhaps the government and those that approve of their thuggery should learn to be more like the shy millionaires by spending below their means, saving, and showing some class.

59 Comments:

Blogger Don Surber said...

Tis the old story of "The Grasshoppers and The Ant"

10:38 AM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger Bonnie said...

I agree with Don - there's definitely a moral here.

But since when have "morals" and "politics" shared a podium?

10:53 AM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

I make a decent income now but, still in debt do to some bad luck/planning and student loans. The day I have no debt, I am going to feel like a millionaire.

When/if I get my first million saved, you bet I will be shy about it. I have enough relatives now with their hands out.

I credit my sister with driving me toward thinking like a fiscal conservative, kind of like the way for some it was their uncle Sam.

(^_^)

11:27 AM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger JohnAnnArbor said...

"Jealous that they have not achieved this level of wealth, now many controlling types of people are scheming to take money from others through high tax rates..."

"Now" nothing. They've always been trying to do this.

11:33 AM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

I've said it before. Just let me know the caliber you'll be showing up at my door with. Those who want to pillage the saved monies of any damn one who has it need to take personal responsibility for their own situations

12:35 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger Thor's Dad said...

Why can't these folks realize that whatever percentage of the "rich" inherit (or marry into their money), their money whether invested in stocks or made from their business endeavors - it in some way affects job creation for the rest of it. Even when they spend money to make purchases, it goes to job creation (yeah, I know so does everyone else's spending). Plus many of them voluntarily support many worthwhile charities - the Gates' Foundation? So of course they are going to hold on to more of their money or drop out of the workforce or limit their business/investment endeavors if you jack up their taxes. The same with taxing large corporations - I'm sure that extreme taxation effects job creation, paying exorbitant payroll taxes for their employees among many, many more. Why should their money go to fund elected officials' pet projects to keep themselves in power and many useless and/or inefficient programs overseen by a bloated bureaucracy (which sucks up much of the tax money).

12:50 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger David Foster said...

Another perception issue: there are forms of wealth that are not usually considered--even by their owners--under the heading of "wealth." For exampe, consider a tenured professor with a retirement plan that will pay $80,000 per year. For someone to buy an annuity with this kind of payout would probably cost somewhere near $1 million. But our professor probably doesn't consider himself as a millionaire, and indeed may be very resentful of the small businessman next door who has $1 million in investments.

To tax "wealth" without also taxing the implied wealth in defined-benefit retirement plans would be extremely discriminatory in favor of government and other institutional employees and against many in the private sector.

1:01 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger Evil HR Lady said...

In a big company, the people at the top can make huge salaries.

I see how much work they put in. They weren't handed the jobs they have. They've busted their buns. And, life at the top is very unstable. If a low level squid makes a mistake you get counseled and put on a performance improvement plan and given goals to meet and if you meet them you won't get fired. If you are at the top and make a mistake, well, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Everyone makes choices. Everyone chooses how hard to work. If you want more money, go work harder. Get more education. Sacrifice other things. If you aren't willing to do that, stop trying to take money away from those that are.

Personally, I'd rather not have that life, so I don't complain about not having that salary.

1:46 PM, October 23, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's no mention of another obvious reason why millionares who play it smart by keeping a low profile (especially for men)... gold-diggers.

I'm not even a millionare, but I have lived and worked in an affluent neighborhood in my city for the last three years and I have seen behavior that most men cannot even fathom... women who will stand in front of the most expensive looking houses on the block, sometimes for hours, dressed to the hilt, waiting for the owner to come home in order to 'meet' him. Women knocking on your door, then when you answer, using any and every excuse to try to get in the door, or sitting in their cars outside of your house waiting for you to come out or strange phone calls in the middle of the night- or at work, women just wandering around like sharks aimlessly, then occasionally wandering in the door of my firm, with a crazy look in their eyes asking things like, "what do you do in here? Oh, what's your name?"

There's a name for all of this. It's called stalking, and I've had to call the police on more than one occasion on some of these women as well have some of my neighbors.

Women are so completely self-centered and money hungry it make me want to vomit.

1:47 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger Webutante said...

This is a terrific post, Helen, and I couldn't agree with it more.

Do you remember "The Millionaire Next Door?" the small businessman with a frugal wife was his greatest asset and they had a lot more money than anyone could have ever known.

The big, flashy spenders are usually always highly leveraged financially, emotionally and spiritually.

1:50 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger Serket said...

It is interesting that Clinton's chief strategist would say these things about hard-working Americans who eventually turn into millionaires, given her socialist vision. I don't know if I'll ever be a millionaire, but living below your means and saving/investing is a great strategy to live by.

3:07 PM, October 23, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm not ideologically opposed to taxing wealth, mainly because I know a lot of fat cats that aren't working.

So what if they're not working? It's their money. I don't care how they spend it. It's THEIR money! Just because they have more of it than some of the rest of us does not give us the right to take it.

5:35 PM, October 23, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hillary Clinton said: "Exxon-Mobil made 34 billion dollars in profits last year! I want that money!!"

Then you can hear the roar of her followers in the background.

It's a sound byte from a speech she made. I'm sure it can still be pulled off the net.

There are untold numbers of 401k plans, stock portfolios, individual investors, etc. who are in Exxon deep and wide. Many of the profits are put into those plans. The Government is already in trouble. S.S. is surely to default before 2020. I look at the S.S. money that has been confiscated from my paychecks over th last 37 years I have been working. Had I invested it all, I would not be working now.

Forced investment. Hmmmm, maybe that's not a bad idea. Or the lesser of two evils. Do what you want with it, but you have to invest it. You can't have it until 59&1/2 years of age. And you're on your own. Beats confiscation by our Government, who spends it as fast as it comes in.

6:27 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger Ignorance is Bliss said...

the average millionaire in America ... received zero inheritance.

So either some people inherited negative amounts of money, or all inherited exactly zero.

7:51 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger vivictius said...

or you are just very blissfull. There are several types of average, median, and mean. Mean is the arithmetic average (x+y+z)/3, median is the middle [9,8,5,3,1]=>5, and mode is the most common [3, 7, 3, 8, 3, 3]=>3.

9:01 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger tomcal said...

I apologize for the pre-empt. I am sitting here in my house in CA, smoke is choking me, and ashes are raining over me (the rest of the family is in Nicaragua experiencing epic rains); however because of the location of my house I am at virtually no risk.

But watching the reactions of people experiencing the extreme stress of a highly dynamic situation is fascinating to me. I am enjoying it. Am I sick?

9:14 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger tomcal said...

P.S. The wind did blow over our orchid greenhouse. Can anyone please tell me how to get FEMA to pay for the damages?

9:24 PM, October 23, 2007  
Blogger tomcal said...

"Living within your means is the key to accumulating wealth."

Warren Buffett

12:15 AM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Maxine Weiss said...

"Middle-class houses are the homes of those who would not live here."--D.J. Waldie

The Middle Class are the true status-seekers. There the ones who are constantly reaching, always straining, grabbing for more. They want to feel rich, so they can forget they are one rung above a trailer park.

The truly wealthy couldn't care less, and have nothing to prove.

1:10 AM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...

David's comment above is very apt. It is galling to see people who have worked little be granted generous entitlements while those, not wanting, or able by virtue of not being in a favored 'disadvantaged' group or presumed holy like the profesor, to be perhaps favored by the government. Meanwile others struggle to pay off the government and still have something. I suppose this was said politely by Ron Reagan who was against 'waste, fraud and abuse.' I agree with your husband who said recently that virtually everybody should pay something. Where I would agree with Reich is that I think progressivity peaks to quickly at about an adjusted gross income of $200,000 and might be at a lower rate there but continue to progress some.

3:45 AM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Cham said...

Tomcal:

I sit here wondering when the people purchased their homes in the brush did they ever ask, "What will happen if there is a drought and then a fire?"

Did they believe it would never happen to them or did the thought that this may happen never occur to them. I scratch my head.

7:47 AM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger tomcal said...

Cham:

They knew it would happen, just like everyone knows there will be a huge earthquake here someday; but "not today". Most will re-build in the same locations.

What galls me is that the finger-pointing about whose fault it is, and the complaints that the government is not acting quickly enough to save us, have already started.

Any time I have lived in the U.S., I have lived in Southern California. In spite of what you hear on the news, these Santa Ana winds are no worse than many others we have had over the years; and I don't think I have ever seen one without fires - they blow over power lines and they are an arsonist's dream. I remember pretending to be a fire-bombing airplane during the Santa Ana's in the schoolyard in the third grade.

The number of fires affecting populated areas is larger than usual, but then there are many more populated areas than there used to be, sadly.

BTW, the reason that my house is not in danger is that the area around it burned in a Santa Ana wind 2 years ago. ;)

10:11 AM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Cham said...

I see some communities in California are not burning to a crisp because they have a 200 ft. buffer perimeter and the builders have used fire-resistant materials. This should be standard building code in CA. Part of the problem is that people elect representatives to a 4 year term. Politicians take a gamble they can avoid the inevitable effects of GW and increase the local kitty through fees associated with building permits and property taxes, so they look the other way and pray for the best when someone wants to build in an area that is sure to burn, split in two or slide down the mountain.

We should not be rebuilding the ninth ward, or building the house in the brush field and we don't need to be so close to the coast to fish off the back deck. Elected leaders need to look well beyond the next 4 years and start building the war chests we need for sea walls and other protective features that we are going to need in 20 years. We, as a people, need to quit arguing about what is happening and start doing something about it. The population of the US is supposed to swell, that is a lot of people living in the middle of the brush.

10:59 AM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger SGT Ted said...

Cham,

Onme could make the arguement that if forest thinning had been alllowed to happen as scheduled by the forest managers, and had not been held up by lawsuits from Big City environmental groups, the fires in So Cal may not have been as catastrophic.

GW has nothing to do with these fires. The Oakland Hills fire in 1989 happened during this time of year, before GW became a trendy crisis. This time of year has always been a high danger fire period here in CA.

11:28 AM, October 24, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The news reads the largest existing home sales slump since 1999. They blame the mortgage lenders. That's crap. Houses - existing, or new, aren't worth the price tag. When the interest only is over, and the piper calls, the keys get dropped on the loan officers desk, and the folks walk back out the door.

I was in the greater Sacramento area a while back working a project. New neighborhoods of 600K + homes. Sheets in the windows, no curtains. Houses that were purchased new, and have been lived in for a year or more. Nice house, but the owners can't afford curtains. And the ca-ca approaches the fan blades.

Oh, and don't forget....the fires are Bush's fault. That didn't take too long.

11:29 AM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger JohnAnnArbor said...

Politicians take a gamble they can avoid the inevitable effects of GW

I call BS. Early in the 20th century, Michigan suffered horrific coast-to-coast forest fires. If that happened now, you'd say "global warming." All GW has done is replace God as the cause of random events.

A hurricane hit Britain full-force in the early 1700s. Imagine the GW faithful if something THAT weird happened today!

1:12 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Daniel Hyams said...

Ignorance is Bliss:

If you are going to be snarky, at least be correct and snarky. The word "average" did not qualify the amount of inheritence, it qualified "millionare". Reread the sentence.

1:18 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger JorgXMcKie said...

I'm not a millionaire (yet -- I intend to live quite a while longer and my wife and I save and invest like crazy), but I'll go for higher taxes on 'the wealthy' *ONLY* after, at a minimum, *ALL* earmarks and pork are removed from the national budget. I fail to see why Pelosi or Murtha (or idiot Ted Stevens) should get to decide to spend milllions (or billions) for their personal pet projects while taxing those who originally made the money.

Perhasp the commenter over at Megan's who was willing to tax fat cats should start with 'fat cat spenders of other people's money.'

1:18 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger wahsatchmo said...

Dave -

I completely agree with you about the removal of all the earmarks and pork first. Raising taxes to pay for irresponsible spending is simply sinful.

Allowing the rich to keep the money that they've made or inherited is not sinful. After all, these estates through which wealth is transferred had to pay up to 55% in estate taxes, and this is after paying taxes on the income to build that estate.

I have a number of rich clients. The majority of these have become wealthy solely on their own efforts. Only the very small minority of these wealthy individuals inherited their fortune.

1:37 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

I'm not a millionaire, but I know one - Earl Bakken, who made his bucks by inventing the pacemaker and building a company that sold it.

Mind you, while I'm not a millionaire, I'm comfortable. But trust me, I'm shy. The sheer vitriol of people who think anybody with money deserves to have it taken away is appalling. God forbid they should find out I have money.

So I just tell them: I know a millionaire, and I know the government. I'd rather trust the millionaire with the money, because he's been doing good things with it.

1:59 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Serket said...

br549, is it this video of Hillary?

Forced investment. Hmmmm, maybe that's not a bad idea. Or the lesser of two evils. Do what you want with it, but you have to invest it. You can't have it until 59&1/2 years of age. And you're on your own. Beats confiscation by our Government, who spends it as fast as it comes in.

I like the idea of having some control over it. Maybe they could give you three options: keep the current plan, invest in government bonds, or invest in stocks. And if it is a requirement, it should also be illegal for the goverment to spend it for other purposes. I took a finance class and the professor, close to retirement, did an example of his SS. I believe he only took the face value of the amount of money he had given to the SSA and determined if he could put that into an immediate annuity he would receive about 4x per month than he is currently going to get.

ignorance is bliss: So either some people inherited negative amounts of money, or all inherited exactly zero.

If 50% received nothing, wouldn't that make the median zero? He could have said the majority did not inherit their money.

tomcal: But watching the reactions of people experiencing the extreme stress of a highly dynamic situation is fascinating to me. I am enjoying it. Am I sick?

If your property was damaged, and it looks like your greenhouse might have a claim :), then you would feel differently.

sgt ted: GW has nothing to do with these fires. The Oakland Hills fire in 1989 happened during this time of year, before GW became a trendy crisis.

I heard a scientist on one of the nightly news shows saying we can't say for sure whether this was or was not caused by GW. But, if CO2 keeps rising, this is the kind of weather we will see. Sounds like a contradiction to me.

2:07 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Chango said...

I was having trouble figuring out why any rich person (most highly placed democrats) would want to rise taxes on rich people until I remembered what my Dad use to say. "If you buy it you own it." Those that pay for the government own the government. So when the top 1% of earners pay 50% of the income tax revenue guess who controls the government...I'll give you a hint, it ain't the voters.

2:08 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger ic said...

Fat cats like JFKerry and his ketchup wife don't work and pay 12% taxes because the fat cats in Congress make sure whatever taxes they impose on us, they have big enough loopholes for real fat cats to hire fat cat lawyers and fat cat accountants to drive a fat truck through the fat holes. They make sure fat cats don't pay tax, only little people pay tax.

2:11 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger The Gaunt Man said...

I would like to add that what qualifies as "rich" can change depending on where you live. I am making a fair bit more now than I did 5 years ago, and my housing situation has changed as well. Then, I was sharing a townhouse with one other person because I didn't want (not couldn't afford) to pay the rent on my own. Now I share a house with three other people (one of them my wife), and I'm not putting anywhere near as much in the bank as I did back then.

So what's different? Back then I lived in Indianapolis, now I live in Northern Virginia. My cost of living roughly doubled as soon as I made the move, and I don't live anywhere NEAR the most expensive parts of NoVA, while I did live in one of the pricier neighborhoods in Indianapolis. Had I been willing to live a half-hour farther out of the city, I could have cut my rent in half out there.

That's the problem with any sort of income-based tax scheme: it never takes into account what that income MEANS. $50,000 a year means comfortably supporting a family of four in most parts of Indiana (and some parts of Virginia). In NoVA, it means a single person doesn't have to shop at Food Lion.

2:17 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Fred Drinkwater said...

I am a millionaire, though very near the bottom of the scale. On the other hand,
1. I have been unemployed since January. My wife has been unemployed since '05.
2. I am paying my kids FULL tuition at MIT, since we have "assets". Figure well over $200,000 for 4 years.
3. I will inherit nothing.
4. I drive a 4-year old low-end Toyota, bought used. That car is our "new" car.
5. I have paid 2 private school tuitions for 12 years, since the local public schools (not that bad, actually) could not handle kids who were reading real books before kindergarten. Believe me, we tried.
6. Neither my wife or I will get any pension (of course, I don't figure SS into our planning. Don't be silly.) We have adequate savings in 401-K and IRA plans, accumulated over many years and with conservative investing.
7. My 35-year old house has desperately needed new paint inside and out for 15 years at least. My appliances are all about 20 years old. I have 9 years to go on the (fixed-rate) mortgage.


See where the money goes?

2:57 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

Great Post, whenever I see someone trying to play up class warfare I bring up the Millionaire Next Door. There's a reason why the average age of a new Ferrari owner is over 50, and it's called compound interest. It's also why I bought a used one, and paid less for it then Glenn did for his RX-8.

3:03 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Wince said...

"the most prevalent group being the most quiet--the Satisfied Savers...The Satisfied Savers are those millionaires who have worked hard, saved much, and lived below their means."

And the people who would be most screwed by Hackbee's "Fair Tax" meant to "reward savings".

These "Quite Savers" will be taxed twice: once on the income when they earned and saved it and, if Huck has his way, taxed again when they eventually spend it.

Huck's overrated. Huck sucks.

3:13 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

Why is the value of your house excluded from the asset side in determining the tally of millionaires?

Here in Seattle, the percentage of people who are millionaires when you include the house has to be far higher than the 2-5% quoted. The average price (arithmetic mean) for a house crossed $400,000 for the entire county, last I heard.

So, are people wrong when they say there are 15% millionaires? Or just using a different metric - that happens to include houses.

3:36 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Dave said...

Why is the value of your house excluded from the asset side in determining the tally of millionaires?

Partly because not many people own their homes outright, and partly because even if you do own it outright, you'd have to sell it or borrow against it to get any use out of that value.

The book "The Millionaire Next Door" mentioned above exposes some interesting trends. Most people who become millionaires do it the way I am trying to: work your ass off (usually means 3+ jobs and/or msall business) and put away as much as you can, eschewing designer labels, expensive restaurants, and fancy cars.

3:49 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Ken said...

Why is it that high tax supporters figure that they can change one variable and all the others will stay the same? The relation between the tax code and earning patterns is dynamic, not static. Adding a high marginal rate will cause a lot of people at or near the "magic" 500,000 level to change their behavior. More nontaxable income will be demanded and energy devoted to making money will be spent on other things.

To get the imagined revenue, tax rates will have to be raised or marginal levels reduced or both. Which will trigger another dynamic reaction. Fairly soon, anything above minimum wage would be taxed at the post WWII figures. Of course all politicians of all persuasions will add more loopholes to the tax code to protect their friends,

The plight of the shy millionaires will seem quaint as we race toward tax increases for everyone that can be crammed into less than 50% of voters. The big problem isn't those targeted by this nonsense. It is that no tax increase will generate enough revenue to buy enough votes to make enough politicians feel comfortable.

4:04 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Original Mike said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

8:46 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Original Mike said...

I fit the shy millionaire mold, living significantly below my means in order to save for retirement. And then when I reach retirement, they're going to clober me with taxes. Work hard, play by the rules, and get clobered. These people understand nothing about incentives (or more likely, they just don't care about anything but their own election).

Mark Penn's book sounds interesting. I think I'll check it out of the library.

9:09 PM, October 24, 2007  
Blogger Helen said...

Original Mike,

The Microtrends book is really a good read and will get you thinking--Penn describes numerous trends around the country including sons who take care of their parents and the graying of kindergarten where he talks about the growing trend of kids starting school at later ages. Check the book out of the library and save the cost of it in your retirement fund --then hope that your tax bill on the money when you do retire is not over 50%.

5:36 AM, October 25, 2007  
Blogger Michele said...

I can't believe the "penalize" was used so overtly in that comment. Someone was being very clear that success deserves punishment. Wow.

7:50 AM, October 25, 2007  
Blogger Original Mike said...

Check the book out of the library and save the cost of it in your retirement fund

Exactly. As Ben Franklin said, "a penny saved is two pennies earned". Well, that's what he would have said in this tax environment.

--then hope that your tax bill on the money when you do retire is not over 50%.

It will be. I'm resigned to it. Not that I'm not resentful, but what are you going to do? (Actually, one thing I'm going to do is retire earlier than I otherwise might. If they're going to take it, screw 'em, I won't earn it)

9:32 AM, October 25, 2007  
Blogger Helen said...

Michele,

That's exactly right, people tend to want to penalize those who are successful, having no clue that successful people are what make the world work. Anyway, there are some experiments called the Cox experiments that "suggest that the reason we have a redistributive tax system is not because people want to help the poor or the unfortunate or the incapacitated; it’s because people enjoy moving other people’s money around just to make mischief."

You can read more about the study here: http://www.reason.com/news/show/27957.html

9:48 AM, October 25, 2007  
Blogger Serket said...

edh, check out the Fair Tax website. Their plan would eliminate federal income tax.

2:12 PM, October 25, 2007  
Blogger tomcal said...

I think I will go re-read "Atlas Shrugged".

8:24 PM, October 25, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do a book report on it, tomcal, when done.

I've heard the book mentioned numerous times, but don't read much anymore. It just pisses me off.

Plus the author is only going to come out some day and say atlas was gay or something.

11:08 PM, October 25, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

where the hell is bugs, anyway?

BUGS!!

11:09 PM, October 25, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

I see Mr. Reynolds posted on my comment about the Ferrari here. This post was about financial issues, so I will say that generally speaking a family's largest asset is their home while their largest liability is their automobile which they often finance to compound their losses. My Ferrari has appreciated in value, because I haven't put a huge amount of miles on it. Actually it has appreciated just about as much as I have spent on the car in maintenance, which as Glenn mentioned, can be a little more costly then the average automobile. However, if you work on the car yourself the maintenance costs are quite reasonable. The important thing to note, though, is that a normal liability (fun toy sportscar) was turned into an asset. Also his RX-8 has a faster 0-60 time then my car, but the Ferrari's got a faster quarter mile time.

11:00 AM, October 26, 2007  
Blogger Serket said...

br549: Plus the author is only going to come out some day and say atlas was gay or something.

Did you read Harry Potter? I do think the claim is bizarre, just because I don't know of any evidence in the text to support it. Ayn Rand died in 1982.

12:06 PM, October 26, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

serket.. I have read no Harry Potter books, nor seen any of the movies. For fantasy, I listen to the democrats on the TV news.

I did however, hear she outed one of the characters from the Potter books she wrote as being gay. It should spur re-reads of the books, more purchases, rentals of the films etc., so people can "figure out" just when one can see the ah-HA he IS gay part of the series.

Probably dreamed up by the marketing department of her publisher.

1:04 PM, October 26, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Personally, I'm working on my second million.

Yeah. I gave up on my first.

12:38 PM, October 27, 2007  
Blogger Simon Kenton said...

A note to the poster who wondered why the house is excluded from net-worth calculations. If you aren't willing to sell it, you don't own it. Almost no one actually sells their house, downsizes, and invests the difference. Almost no one takes out a reverse mortgage. Just looking at it as a matter of how people actually behave, the house you own at age 65 should be moved out of your net-worth column and into your kids' column, because that's what almost always happens to it. A house is a use asset, not an earning asset.

We did it the classic way. We are just at the low end of the scale: my wife and I each have about a meg excluding the house (which is paid for, and which we like, so we won't sell it). Most of my friends consider me a charter member of CBOA - Cheap Bastards of America. My wife commented that in any marriage there's a saver and a spender, and in any normal marriage, she'd be the saver. I never made more than 75K, and had several years of unemployment, but saved and invested what and when I could. I lived by the idea that debt is abhorrent, unless someone else is paying it for you; rentals are a big plus as long as you don't let relations with tenants corrode your belief in people. I think a good test is the following: when deciding whether to incur a debt, ask whether other people would be willing to pay it for you. Cars, small airplanes, vacations, safaris, consumer goods - you have to have a rich talent for self-delusion to claim that others would be willing to pay those items for you. They fail the test -- therefore you shouldn't go into debt for them. But going into debt to provide others with quality housing? That passes the test.

Social Security is not only nugatory as an 'investment,' it is profoundly immoral. It seems to me the best way to clease that money (morally cleanse it, if you will) is to get it invested, actually invested and not in some bullshit government 'trust fund.' And the best way to invest it is on behalf of people who are staying at home raising kids. So, to the extent I can - and I think I will be able to pull it off via offsetting investments, mostly tax-free - I intend to use my social security to employ whichever of my kids or their spouses stays at home to raise the grandchildren. I'll pay them just enough to max their IRA during the years that are otherwise lost to capital and retirement accumulation while they are accomplishing something critical to family, community, and nation.

5:56 PM, October 27, 2007  
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