How about life as an answer? Or life choices? If you drop out of high school and have kids before you’re 18, you’re much more likely to make less money, but you have a big family instead. 
Most american will never become millionaires let alone mega or anything more.
About 8 percent of american households have a million dollar net worth. 92 percent don’t. That’s most.
This attitude of envy really pisses me off. It matters less how many rich people there are than how many poor people there are. If 90% of the people can live comfortably and 10% live luxuriously, surely that’s better than 8% luxuriously, 70% comfortably, and 22% in poverty (figures wholly invented)?
Becoming a billionaire usually involves starting your own business and it becoming an empire. So that’s always going to be pretty rare.
Now being simply wealthy, that can be done just by working hard and prioritizing moneymaking in your life over everything else. Do well in school, go to college, get an in demand degree, get a good paying job, work 60 hours a week, don’t start a family or let other things distract you, and you’ll probably get pretty darn rich. Most of us would rather not do that, and that’s fine. Just so long as we don’t think we’re entitled to the money of those who did make that their priority.
Someday it might be possible to tax free time, love, and friendship.
I would upgrade “usually” to “virtually always.” Except for a very few entertainers (and I think of athletes as a type of entertainer), nobody becomes truly wealthy by selling his or her own labor.
There is one path to mega riches that way: move up the ranks of a big company until you get to a high executive position. Quite doable for top performers with political skills. Not billionaire riches, but certainly in the 7 figure salary range.
I agree with this – especially what’s in parentheses.
No doubt true but perhaps misleading.
$1 million, in 2016 dollars, is not so much. A decade’s savings plus a smart property investment could probably push a middle-manager over that line.
But if we’re talking mega millionaires, like the OP, the proportion of inheritors likely increases.
Also, how are we defining whether money was inherited? If my family can keep bankrolling my business ideas (so I never feel under financial stress), then I hit it big on the fifth attempt, and get even richer than my parents, does that count as inherited wealth?
I’m not trying to use excuses of “It was easy for her; her parents are rich” or whatever, but it does have a big effect, and you can see that in social mobility stats (allowing for the fact that directly receiving money is far from the only benefit of having wealthy parents).
Getting rich is a series of gambles. Hard work and talent will improve your odds, but never guarantee success.
Also ‘millionaire’ needs to be retired as a mark of “Wealth”
A million bucks assets isnt enough for a carefree , free-spending life. I promise.
Because even if you have a billion dollar idea (as I have had) the venture capital folks wan’t give you the start-up capital unless you have covered every base–gotten people of note and notoriety to be willing to vouche for you and want “in” as a player. I have been through this and you get a lot of lip service and congratulations but then when it comes time for them to take any risks with their names and reps, no one wants to be first or you find out you’ve been told a bunch of crap by people who just don’t like the feeling of being straight with anyone. You can’t be imperfect.
Not retired but redefined. Instead of assets it now needs to refer to income.
I hope you don’t like donuts.
Cite.
Cite.
Feel free to move the goalposts, but you’ve lost the bet.
Regards,
Shodan
ENOUGH!
Whether joking or serious, this thread does not need to turn into a partisan snipe fest.
Stick to the topic and leave the partisan jabs for The BBQ Pit.
[ /Moderating ]
No, but it is rich as hell for most people. The only exceptions would be those who live in areas where all of their million is tied up in their home and where a million dollar home denotes merely upper middle class for that area, such as New York City or San Francisco.
But I don’t think we can retire one million just yet, since even in NY, having $1 million in your property and another $1 million in the bank makes you fabulously wealthy. I wouldn’t really define “the rich” as free spenders, since even at $10 million you can’t be a free spender. Lots of athletes and entertainers and lottery winners have made more than that and gone bankrupt through their free spending ways. Virtually any sum under $100 million can be spent away if you have enough “friends” to with their hands out.
It actually wasn’t meant as a snipe, I think a lot of Republicans would blame taxes for them not being millionaires.
I will take that bet for millionaires.
The actual number of inherited millionaires is roughly 35%. Meaning 65% are self made.
Slee
Well, it is the big difference if you’re in the high six figures. The issue with taxing incomes between 250K and 500K more is that people making that kind of money probably will have to cut back on their spending to pay the higher taxes. And they’ll certainly cut down on their savings.
Being a millionaire is meaningless nowadays. Lets see the stats for those with a net worth of $10 million and up and I think you’ll find that the percentage of inherited is much higher.
Not in the internet age. Nowadays some kid starts a website, it gets a big following, and either a big company buys it for a hundred million or he figures out a way to monetize his millions of users.
I don’t see it. If you make over $250K, taxes plus your spending won’t be half of that. So in 10 years you’re a millionaire. Role of government and taxes is negligible.