Millionaires control 41% of the worlds wealth, is anyone moved by this story anymore?

[Tsing Tao]

with a million in a well diversified 50% stocks 50% bonds you can realistically withdraw 40k per year. Yes, some years you be dipping into your principal, but in other years your portfolio will grow by more than 4%

Yeah, and no reason to believe this will ever end.

 

[Scataphagos]

Yeah, and no reason to believe this will ever end.

Why should it?

The rich are so because they've accumulated capital. Capital begets capital.

Rather than disparaging the successful, should be a motivation and incentive for all to aspire to become rich themselves.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Why should it?

The rich are so because they've accumulated capital. Capital begets capital.

Rather than disparaging the successful, should be a motivation and incentive for all to aspire to become rich themselves.

I'm talking about the stock market and his comment that it'll continue at 4% a year.

 

[loyek590]

I'm talking about the stock market and his comment that it'll continue at 4% a year.

not the stock market alone, 50% stocks 50% bonds, and I am comfortable with dipping into the the principal in down years

 

[loyek590]

and if you can live on 2% you can just buy an S&P 500 index fund and live off the dividends

 

[MaklodaSux]

So, millionaires and billionaires have more money than normal people. I might have guessed that without a report. Usually the people who know how to make money, know how to make more of it. Eventually a stupid son or grandson spends it all on drugs and Ferraris

Right and when when they get stupid and screw up, then the tax payer bails out their mistakes.. makes perfect sense. Privatize gains and socialize loses, that's what making money is all about!

 

[Visaria]

Someone once told me that it is hard to become a millionaire. I asked why that was. He said it was obvious, the reason was that there are so few of them, therefore ergo, it must be hard to become one. That never really made any sense to me. It's like saying so few people have gone to the moon therefore it must be hard to go to the moon.

The correct way to look at it is to see how many people are (seriously) trying to become millionaires (or trying to go to the moon). That base number of people is much smaller than the population of a country. In the US, there may be only say 50 million people trying to become millionaires. If you then consider there are over 10 million millionaires already, i dunno, maybe the odds aren't so bad...

 

[pyradius]

We all know with historical records on wall street it only means one thing....that gap between rich and poor is widening more now than ever before since the rich and wealthy mostly own stocks and big dividend paying companies... seeing this headline once again isnt really a story, it seems many people talk about it and many people try to understand why this gap has only gotten bigger and why the wealthy control nearly all the wealth in this world, but nothing has changed, it will continue to widen for decades and generations to come....what I did find interesting was a video I found recently, its from 2012, but still makes a very interesting point...take a look.

Millionaires control 41% of world's wealth, expected to take more
Robert Frank | @robtfrank
Monday, 15 Jun 2015 | 12:00 PM ET


Millionaires are expected to control nearly half of the world's personal wealth by 2019, according to a new study, suggesting that the wealth gap will continue to widen.

The Global Wealth report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said the number of millionaires in the world grew to 17 million in 2014, up from 15 million in 2013. The world's millionaires now control 41 percent of the $164 trillion in global private wealth, up from 40 percent in 2013. The report said millionaires are expected to control 46 percent of the world's wealth in 2019.

"The wealthier are getting more and more wealthy"-Anna Zakrewski, Partner and managing director, Boston Consulting Group
The growing fortunes of the wealthy are owed largely to rising stock markets and asset prices around the world. According to BCG, 73 percent of the gains in global private wealth last year came from market performance on existing assets rather than newly created wealth or businesses.

"The wealthier are getting more and more wealthy," said Anna Zakrzewski, a BCG partner and managing director. "They have a much larger share of their wealth invested in equity markets and last year was a good year for market performance."



By far, the U.S. still has the largest number of millionaires. That segment of the population grew by 4.7 percent last year to 6.9 million. (BCG defines millionaires as households with $1 million in easily monetized wealth—cash, stock and securities, pension funds and other financial assets. Their wealth measurement doesn't include real estate, business ownership and collectible and consumer goods).

China ranked second in millionaire population but had the largest number of new millionaires in 2014. Its millionaire population grew to 3.6 million from 2.4 million in 2014, meaning the world's second largest economy added more than half of the world's 2 million new millionaires last year.

Number of millionaire households (thousands)
Ranking 2014
Country
2014
2013
%-Change
1 USA 6,906 6,595 4.70%
2 China 3,613 2,425 49.00%
3 Japan 1,125 1,074 4.70%
4 UK 731 606 20.60%
5 Switzerland 461 415 11.10%
6 Canada 418 362 15.50%
7 Germany 350 338 3.60%
8 Taiwan 325 310 4.80%
9 Italy 291 271 7.40%
10 Russia 242 198 22.20%
11 France 230 225 2.20%
12 Hong Kong 229 210 9.00%
13 Australia 215 182 18.10%
14 Netherlands 187 158 18.40%
15 Belgium 164 155 5.80%
Source: Boston Consulting Group
Ranking third was Japan, with 1.1 million millionaires, up 4.7 percent from 2013.

Switzerland had the highest concentration of millionaires, or millionaires per capita. Fully 13.5 percent of Switzerland's population are millionaires. Bahrain ranked second, with 12.3 percent, followed by Qatar with 11.6 percent.

The report also highlighted a growing divide between the rich and the super rich, as billionaires and those with hundreds of millions of dollars enjoy stronger wealth gains than mere millionaires.

The number of ultra-high-net-worth households—which is defined as $100 million and up—is expected to grow by 19 percent globally and 12 percent in North America by 2019.

In contrast, the number of "lower high-net worth" households, or those with $1 million to $20 million, is expected to grow by only 6.9 percent.

Proportion of millionaire households (%)
Ranking 2014
Country
2014
2013
%-Change
1 Switzerland 13.5 12.2 10.6%
2 Bahrain 12.3 12.1 1.6%
3 Qatar 11.6 11.3 3.0%
4 Singapore 10.7 9.7 10.2%
5 Kuwait 9.9 9.8 1.1%
6 Hong Kong 9.4 8.7 7.8%
7 USA 5.6 5.4 4.0%
8 Israel 4.9 4.6 6.0%
9 Taiwan 3.9 3.7 4.2%
10 UAE 3.8 3.6 4.7%
11 Belgium 3.5 3.3 5.0%
12 Oman 3.2 2.3 37.7%
13 Canada 3 2.7 13.0%
14 UK 2.7 2.3 18.7%
15 Saudi Arabia 2.6 2.7 -2.6%
Source: Boston Consulting Group


http://www.cnbc.com/id/102759742

I guess I was never moved, because it only seems like a logical conclusion to how our system is set up.

US markets are the most widely used markets in the world. Globalization shifted us massively to an investor-based economy.

Lobbyism for rules and lack thereof becomes a part of the system.

China with their sheer size and manipulative government sits upon it all, tapping into the US capitalist system (whoah shocker, most new millionaires here).

 

[luisHK]

Right and when when they get stupid and screw up, then the tax payer bails out their mistakes.. makes perfect sense. Privatize gains and socialize loses, that's what making money is all about!

I don't think so for most families, when a heir screws up big time, most likely the family with go down the social ladder. Although one can hope most of the family members growing up in well off circles with good educational opportunities will at least be able to keep a comfortable middle class lifestyle even though much of the inherited wealth has been squandered ( lots of descendants and estate tax doesn't help trans generational wealth)

 

[luisHK]

The correct way to look at it is to see how many people are (seriously) trying to become millionaires (or trying to go to the moon). That base number of people is much smaller than the population of a country. In the US, there may be only say 50 million people trying to become millionaires. If you then consider there are over 10 million millionaires already, i dunno, maybe the odds aren't so bad...

Your view makes perfect sense, in Europe where the welfare states take away a lot of worries regarding health issues and retirement it's obvious a lot of people do away rather happily with the idea of getting a very moderate income and little savings.
Ime it's neither hard the save 1 million nor much money at all if you are looking to be wealthy and independent from the state.