And to be clear, as the American financial services industry looks at it net worth doesn’t include the value of or equity in the primary residence. So paying the mortgage or even paying it off entirely doesn’t usually count as contributing to net worth.
While I understand what you’re asking, it’s kind of a useless metric (unless one is an conservative trying to tell Americans making well below the median domestic income of approx. $55k/annum that they’re “global 1-percenters” and should therefore shut their ingrate mouths about the minimum wage and such).
That’s what @the_borderer is answering. The local context of where a person actually lives matters, because cost of living and what’s your position in a particular society isn’t the same across the world. It’s comparing apples and oranges.
The statistic I really want to know, is how low your political dollar donation can go, before you’re just better off going to the polls and voting. Seems like money is the real measure of democracy any more.
Yah, the wealth gap is really important to focus on, rather than whether rich people exist, how many there are, how rich they are, etc.
The sad part is, smart people have spent many decades thinking about this important problem and we have an effective, fair, and agreed-upon solution to it- progressive taxation. Everyone wins- rich people give back to the community that made them rich (while still getting to keep more money than anyone can spend) and upward mobility is increased for everyone. Simultaneously we gain the ability to support the poor at the bottom who are victims of the same society making other people rich. It’s a really great solution all around…
…that Republicans have devoted their entire agenda to destroying since Reagan or so.
Exactly. I’m pretty damn well off in the Shenandoah Valley, but would probably be homeless is SF. Since I live here, I am pretty well off and can enjoy that. Where I would be in Chad, Monaco or Zurich really matters not at all.
It doesn’t really matter, but it is fun to imagine, if but for a moment, that you could move somewhere else and be living la vida loca. (I know, la vida loca would be way, way different than what most people probably have in mind when they imagine being in the 1%).
For one thing, it’s a lot easier to have your 1%-er money and stuff taken away from you by thieves (state-backed or private operators) in Chad or Russia or China. Living “la vida loca” in places like that means having bodyguards and lawyers and local police and elected officials on your household payroll and not spending a lot of time off the grounds of your no-doubt sumptuous estate. Most well-adjusted citizens of OECD countries would not want to live that way.
It’s still meaningless, because in some places that’s living high on the hog and in others it’s literally barely scrapping by. Context matters. I’m gonna guess that people who make that much who live in places where they are barely scrapping by can’t afford to live in places where they’d be considered well-off! Most people making that much in the US have no savings put away to finance moving to a different state, much less a different country. And as they are stuck here, they are probably living pay check to pay check, one disaster away from being homeless (such as, for example, coming down with covid-19 and losing their job).
The term is usually attributed to David Graeber and what you say there is what he says is the problem with the phrase. It was marketing speak in a way. And he regretted it.
I guess I’m coming from a viewpoint where I don’t have to imagine it. I know a few families who live like that, who’ve traded living in a liberal democracy in exchange for a ridiculously affluent lifestyle supposedly paid for by not paying taxes to support “the undeserving”.
They all live with an underlying constant low-level stress and paranoia. They all also already fall into the top 10% of American households in net worth, which means they’d live extremely comfortably with a lot less stress just staying put in the U.S. and paying their taxes.
Context matters. I’m gonna guess that people who make that much who live in places where they are barely scrapping by can’t afford to live in places where they’d be considered well-off! Most people making that much in the US have no savings put away to finance moving to a different state, much less a different country. And as they are stuck here, they are probably living pay check to pay check, one disaster away from being homeless (such as, for example, coming down with covid-19 and losing their job).
