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No wonder big $$$ boats are finding a market.......
A recent item in the local paper explains why $300,000 fishing boats
are finding buyers and why new 45-footers can command prices north of
$1mm.In my local county there are now 68,000 households with net worth in
excess of a million dollars, *excluding* equity in a personal
residence. (If they didn't exclude home equity, that figure would be
several times higher). According to the same item, some of the investment brokerges are
redefining "highly qualified" investor for purposes of risk tolerance
assessment. The old standard for many was that an investor be a
"millionaire" (net worth of seven figures excluding home equity), but
since you can now have liquid assets of $1mm and still be considered
upper middle class that standard is being moved to $2.5mm or higher at
many firms. One brokerage house reserves its premium services for
clients with nets of $10mm or more, lumping the rest of the mere
millionaires into a group they call "moderately affluent". :-) None of this involves me, of course. I can calculate my net worth on
any particular day by reaching into my pocket and adding up the value
of the dimes and quarters jingling around. But it does explain why boats priced at 6, 8, 10 and 20 times more
than an "average" annual salary of about $50k
have no problem selling and why so many marinas are reconfiguring as
rapidly as they can to increase the number of 50-60 foot slips.
There's plenty of money out there, (somewhere!). :-) |
Jun 13
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| Now we know why we're losing the middle class, as several liberals have
said repeatedly. They're becoming millionaires. |
John
Jun 13
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| While I do calculate my net worth by adding up the coins in my pocket,
I know a number of folks lucky enough to be included among those
68,000 households. Most of them are busily working for a living and
fretting over the household budget every month. Those "millionaires"
are part of the middle class. $1mm isn't what it used to be, not by a
very long shot. It certainly doesn't imply unlimited personal or
financial options. If you plowed $1mm into a personal single family
residence, for instance, you wouldn't be able to live in anything
beyond one of the "upper middle class" neighborhoods in Seattle or
many other metro areas. |
Jun 13
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| The way I read the article, the million dollars didn't include the family
residence, which would raise the net worth 'several times higher'. I would still submit that, given facts like these, the constant whining
about the loss of the middle class is somewhat disingenuous. |
John
Jun 13
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| You shouldn't include equity in a family home as a financial asset,
unless you plan to take up living in a tent. That's like considering
the market value of one of your kidneys; sure you own it, but you're
going to need to use it and can't covert it to cash. Go where the middle class used to be, John. You'll still find a lot of
people there, but not like a couple of generations ago. Some have
moved "up", and some have moved down. If it was 10%, 65%, 25%
(wealthy, middle class, poor) in the 60's its probably closer to 20%,
45%, 35% today. The middle class is still the largest group, but isn't
growing while the wealthy class and the "have nots" are. It also takes
a lot more money to be middle class today. We're both old enough to
remember when $1000 a month was a pretty respectable income, so maybe
nothing's changed too much except we've added a zero to everything in
sight. :-) |
Jun 13
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| The biggest change, in my opinion, is expectations at each level. I
would dare say that in your change in the "poor" from 25% to 35%, that
10% at the top of the new poor group has more and better "stuff" than
the bottom 10% of the middle class did in the 60s. More of them own
cars, have TVs, (obviously more have computers), live in air
conditioned homes, buy $100 tennis shoes, eat more prepackaged and
restraurant meals... and on and on. They are living more like the
lower middle class or better of the 1960s, but "feel" poorer because
they see what others have. It is drilled into them as they watch TV
and movies (on their DVD players and IPODs) and see what we pass off
as the norm. " Poor" is an extremely relative term. Dave Hall |
Dave
Jun 13
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| There's certainly some merit to your observation. Poor in the 60's was
going to shcool without shoes. Poor in 2007 is going to school in
sneakers that sell for less than $150 a pair. :-) |
Jun 13
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| My dream in high school was to make $10,000 a year. Yup, times have
changed. I think if we'd stopped illegal immigration back in 1986, the 'have nots'
would not be nearly as sizeable. Plus, we'd have a lot fewer cars on the
road. |
John
Jun 13
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