I doubt these numbers there is a big difference between controling a million dollars in assets and having a million dollars in assets.
i.e. if you owe 2 million but have 1.5 million in assets your not a millionaire
I don’t claim to be an expert at this. Part of my information came from “The Millionaire Next Door” and part from an article whose source I no longer recall. Those are “net asset” numbers. However, as the book pointed out, most of those people are small business owners and most of the wealth is in the business itself.
CNNMoney asserts that there are 8.9 million people whose net worth is over 2 million, exclusive of residence, with 1.4 million of that in liquid assets. That’s about 3% of the total population versus the 5% I remember, but the wealth numbers in the CNN article are higher too.
According to CNNMoney, the average age of the head of those households is 58.
I have been simply amazed at the number of millionaires I have met in the last few years. Virtually none of them inherited it. Most are small businessmen or ranchers. When you consider that, around here a million dollars will buy you about 500 acres, not counting cattle, machinery or the home, it’s not that hard to imagine. There are hundreds of contract poultry farmers here, and a million dollars is about four state-of-the-art poultry houses with equipment. Most have more than four houses. Eight is about standard.
But it’s tough. Those poultry people live hand to mouth for about 7 years and work very hard. No vacations, period. From there on, it’s better financially, but the work is still demanding, and the houses amortize out in 15 years. Those folks are just ordinary country people. Most are fairly young, but not all are. Some of them are Orientals, refugees from Laos and Cambodia mostly, who came here with absolutely nothing.
Down at the feed mill young men hoist heavy stuff all day long in the cold and heat, and haunt the sale barns at night, buying calves to raise on rented land. Mighty tough. But that’s how you eventually get your down payment for the first 80 acres. I suspect most of them will be millionaires in 20-30 years. It’s a hard life, but it’s rewarding in the long term.
I know a fair number of line workers at a meat processing plant who are worth half a million or so, because they bought matching stock in the company for years. There are others with the same jobs and the same opportunities who put their money up their noses and have nothing.
I know one former secretary in a computer software firm who is worth 7 million because she not only bought options in lieu of part of her salary, but borrowed money from the CEO to buy stock in the IPO of the company. He was proud of her for doing it, and loaned it to her. She just retired at age 60. Her husband was a home handyman, and he retired too. I would say her house is worth about $90,000.00. She built a preschool for our parish. Just built it and gave it to the parish, fully equipped.
A local farmer with good financial sense and a farm to put up for collateral joined with the guy who started the software business, and he’s now worth 40 million. He lives in a house worth maybe $175,000.00. He makes a lot of loans to people like those kids at the feed mill and the chicken house people for their down payments, if he believes in them. And he isn’t the only one around here who does that. He donated a million to the parish last year to build a new parish hall.
There is a new charter bank here, whose stock anyone could have bought three years ago and borrowed half the money to do it with no problem. Now, that investment has doubled and pays a 9% dividend based on the original price. Lots of local people bought in the IPO, but a lot more didn’t, and wish they had.
I know two families that are earth-movers. Dozers and trucks and all that. Never saw the inside of a college. Do most of their own repair work. They’re more than net millionaires, but it’s mostly in the trucks and dozers and backhoes.
Two local farm boys went into the implement business. One worked his way up to a JD franchise and the other to Case. Both are net millionaires now, but it’s mostly in their inventory.
A local Vietnamese “boat person” came here with nothing as a boy; went to school and worked in California for awhile, earned a little money, then came here, and opened a restaurant on mostly borrowed money. He still has the restaurant, but now also owns a strip center and a number of duplexes. He’s about 50 now, and is most definitely a net millionaire. He donated a quarter million to the parish hall fund last year.
And this is not a particularly wealthy area. I still think there are a lot more people out there with major assets than people realize.
Most of the ones I know are the plainest, most decent people you would ever want to meet, and I don’t begrudge their success in the least.
) when they refuse to protect the MOST vulnerable in our society, the unborn and the poor, scared women caught up in a crisis pregnancy 
? Veterinary offices are more regulated than abortion clinics, and your daughter can’t be given a tylenol at school w/o your permission, but PP wants her to be able to have an abortion w/o your knowledge? This is NOT a “pro-woman” position!