Wealth: When is enough enough?

Gold Bars (Agnico-Eagle)

Rather than merely reflecting what incomes may look like at any given moment in time, "distribution of wealth" statistics take into consideration the overall "ownership of assets in a society…"

Wikipedia also defines "wealth" as "those items of economic value that an individual owns."  A simple way of expressing this is via the following formula:  wealth equals assets minus liabilities.  In other words, if your debt exceeds your assets, you're not actually "wealthy" (no matter how many

credit-card items you've purchased).

Nevertheless, you'd think that millionaires might consider themselves wealthy (and extremely fortunate – considering that much of the world is literally dying of poverty).  However, Abby Ellin of ABC News reports on a surprising reality.

Ellin explains that a study titled "What is Wealthy" from the UBS investment bank indicates that "40 percent of those with $5 million in investable assets said they didn't feel they were rich ."  Not only that, their "poor cousins" with "only" $1 to $5 million in investable assets" were feeling even more "deprived."  Only 28% of this latter group felt "rich."

The "cure" for this "wealth anxiety" might be for such folks to part with a bit of their millions and purchase plane tickets to parts of the world where even one dollar can make a difference. They might then better understand how very gifted their comfortable lives have been.

Resources

http://news.yahoo.com/study-finds-only-28-percent-173022359.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

Copyright August 2, 2013 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved