Are you rich?

[Skeptisk]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...

So I was looking at wealth as a way of comparing countries. Of course that is difficult and any measure you use will have advantages and disadvantages. I have chosen median net wealth. I think median is better than the mean and the mean gets skewed by the super wealthy.

The data didn’t get intervals so I’ve gone with the crude binary divide of you are rich if you are above the median and poor below.

I think what was interesting to me is that although the US is the richest country, using the median it only comes 15th on the list. The U.K. does very well at 9th.

I think median wealth is better than per capita GDP that get bloated by countries that use tax dodges eg Ireland is number 2 if you take GDP per capita but 22nd if you look at median wealth.

The figure of £120k seems pretty small. A third of the value of your average house. Of course the figures are for all adults and there will be a lot of younger people with almost no assets that being the figure down.

[Skeptisk]

MrBig said:

I assume net assets includes any equity in your home? £120k seems rather small, but eye-opening!

Yes it should include all assets less all debts

[Skeptisk]

Ken_Code said:

akirk said:

ThingsBehindTheSun said:

Partner and I both earn more than double the national average. However, I live in Greater London, so if you compared our house to some of the houses around here you would think we were poor.

Have to say, I don't feel very wealthy, drive a £4K car, Spend about £3000 on holidays a year each, 2 bedroom house etc.

When I see someone in their 40s in a £2.5 million house with several brand new cars on the drive I wonder where it all went wrong.

On paper most of the country would assume we have an amazing lifestyle but I don't see it.

S100HP said:

According to the poll, yes. In reality, I don't have two pennies to rub together. My house is worth about 300k, mortgage remaining around 70k, but that's all I have. No savings, nothing. I just about to opt out of my NHS pension as I'm only just taking home enough to cover my bills. Another couple of hundred in my pocket will make a huge difference. It's bloody depressing at 41 years old. Can't afford holidays etc. We're just surviving.

The Gauge said:

Patio - The concrete patio slabs that were there when we moved into our house in 2007 were broken, wonky and rocking so we had a new patio laid.

It is an interesting thread, in particular to read perceptions from what is undoubtedly a skewed audience anyway...
examples above show someone able to own a house / have a holiday / own a car, but not feeling rich - yet for millions they don't have the funds to do any of those things... Someone else 'just surviving' yet has c. £250,000 in equity in a house and takes home enough to cover their bills - v. the large number of people whose take home pay is less than their bills / who are dependent on the council for housing and foodbanks for food... there are c. 3,000,000 children in the UK who can't guarantee to actually be offered breakfast before going to school - I suspect that no-one on this thread is actually in poverty...

The comment about the patio slabs intrigued me - not the ongoing silly arguments about spend of money - but because it is symbolic of something very noticeable in our country v. other countries around the world... In the UK - when something like that is not 90% - 100% perfect it is replaced as though the bare minimum standard is of a new item - in other countries, if the functionality is there, no replacement takes place - is a house water-tight / is it basically warm and provides shelter - then it is fine un-rendered / without being fully finished as we would expect in the UK - here we fuss about heat values and eco-housing, we replace carpets because there is a small warn patch, we have a strong philosophy replacing with new (and often poor quality) rather than fixing what is broken - we look to buy new cars on financial discions that don't make sense, rather than run an older car and fix it. We have a very high level of minimum standards and we spend spend spend to keep houses / cars / items we own above that - rather than a more functional approach which would be more normal elsewhere...

There are some huge flaws in our approach as a nation to wealth / assets / expectations / etc.

Ken_Code said:

Over 90% of the Times Rich list can (by a reasonable definition of the term) be described as self-made.

I think that out of the hundreds of people who I know personally who’d likely be described as rich only three or four got that way through inheritance.

The rest are normal people who via a mixture of luck, judgement and well-planned effort earned it.

You do know that these rich lists are totally flawed - a huge part of the wealth in our country sits with people where it is difficult to detect it so they don't appear on such lists - it is very easy to pull up companies house records for a business and say xxx owns 55% so is worth ££££ - it is very tricky to value land / a leaky castle / assets held elsewhere in the world / etc. I know a lot of people who are not on the list but if they liquidated their assets would comfortably knock many off the list - including some who would appear towards the very top, but they are terribly secretive about their wealth.

The very wealthy often have no assets or wealth at all - they simply have the use and control of assets and wealth - far more tax efficient!

If you have any data that contradicts what I wrote it’d be good if you could post it.

What was the definition of “self-made”?

I suspect that a large percentage of rich people had lots of help getting there, in one form or another.

[Skeptisk]

Ken_Code said:

Skeptisk said:

What was the definition of “self-made”?

I suspect that a large percentage of rich people had lots of help getting there, in one form or another.

Everyone in the UK has had help. Self-made meant that the money wasn’t gifted or inherited.

The very term “self-made” comes loaded with meaning and is the sort of phrase thrown out by the likes of Fox News when they talk of “wealth creators” and implies that success is all down to the individual (and conversely that not being rich is your own fault). It conveniently overlooks that wealth begets wealth and that your financial success in life is very strongly correlated with the wealth and educational background of your family.

[Skeptisk]

okgo said:

Even a 1 minute skim if average life expectancy stats will tell you which is the more sensible thing to plan for. Death at 60 or 85… many more will make the latter, especially if they’re 35 today as I assume he is.

I haven’t even given a seconds thought to those relatives of mine that died early. They are them. I am me. In a living sense. Exceptions apply with things that get passed down but you PROBABLY won’t die at 60, which is a young age to go for anyone. Let alone someone who’s in their 30’s today.

But on the other hand you don’t know what life will be like in 30, 40 or 50 years and whether. Society could go to pot and it might not be worth living. Or inflation could ruin tour plans. An Argentinian friend was telling me about his father. Retired 10 years ago with a super pension…but what he gets every week is now worth about 20% of what it was in real money. He has gone from well off to scrapping by.

[Skeptisk]

okgo said:

Skeptisk said:

But on the other hand you don’t know what life will be like in 30, 40 or 50 years and whether. Society could go to pot and it might not be worth living. Or inflation could ruin tour plans. An Argentinian friend was telling me about his father. Retired 10 years ago with a super pension…but what he gets every week is now worth about 20% of what it was in real money. He has gone from well off to scrapping by.

All of that is vanishingly unlikely to happen in one of the world’s largest economies. Argentina entire exonomy is probably about the same as Surrey.

You have no idea what will happen over the next 30 to 50 years. Neither do I and neither does anyone else.

I suspect that the end of the 19th century, most people in the U.K. would not have forecast two world wars and the loss of the empire within the next half century.

[Skeptisk]

J4CKO said:

Saw Jimmy Carr talking about similar and saying how we take things like having a shower for granted and consider ourselves poor if we don’t have certain items.

I don’t feel that wealthy living in Cheshire as you see some incredible wealth but I do ok, can’t complain really.

I’ve spent a bit of time in India living with my wife’s relatives and also been there on business (staying in hotels). It was very eye opening. Most of the people I stayed with were rich by Indian standards (anyone in the middle class is rich), yet they were very poor by U.K. standards with small houses, poor facilities and of course rolling cut off of electricity and water. However compared to the masses living on the street or in shanty towns, possessing not much more than the clothes in their backs, they were rich.

I really liked the strong family bonds. Even though I was white (and at that point not even married to my wife) they couldn’t have treated me better. I think my flight back was around 1 am and the whole family I was staying with in Delhi plus several other relatives in the area came to the airport to see me off. What they lacked in money they made up for in interpersonal relationships

[Skeptisk]

NRG1976 said:

If you’re poor suck it up. There is a chance your life may be considerably worse than a super rich person. That’s life, it isn’t fair, it just is the way it is. Just live within your own means and stop comparing or try to rationalise away to try to make things “make sense”.

All these stories of “I knew a guy who had £10m and he died
before he was even born..or I know a bloke who had £50m and the day he retired he died” are tiresome.

Here’s the thing, if you are poor and yet are in good health / came from a family with a home, it is likely because you made piss poor life decisions or just didn’t want to accumulate wealth through making sacrifices. I can point to 1000s of immigrants who are wealthier than their white counterparts despite coming to this country with nothing, except humility and work ethic.

Edited by NRG1976 on Saturday 8th June 14:15

Is that a parody post?

If not, how did you get so brainwashed? You really have bought into the BS of its all down to hard work. Stockholm syndrome.

Can’t help think of this.

https://youtu.be/8EI7p2p1QJI?si=faDfOOLY5wJOMXK8

[Skeptisk]

NRG1976 said:

Skeptisk said:

NRG1976 said:

If you’re poor suck it up. There is a chance your life may be considerably worse than a super rich person. That’s life, it isn’t fair, it just is the way it is. Just live within your own means and stop comparing or try to rationalise away to try to make things “make sense”.

All these stories of “I knew a guy who had £10m and he died
before he was even born..or I know a bloke who had £50m and the day he retired he died” are tiresome.

Here’s the thing, if you are poor and yet are in good health / came from a family with a home, it is likely because you made piss poor life decisions or just didn’t want to accumulate wealth through making sacrifices. I can point to 1000s of immigrants who are wealthier than their white counterparts despite coming to this country with nothing, except humility and work ethic.

Edited by NRG1976 on Saturday 8th June 14:15

Is that a parody post?

If not, how did you get so brainwashed? You really have bought into the BS of its all down to hard work. Stockholm syndrome.

Can’t help think of this.

https://youtu.be/8EI7p2p1QJI?si=faDfOOLY5wJOMXK8

As a child of an immigrant I can assure you it’s not a parody post. My many, many white friends at school had better opportunities than me but decided they were too good to do what it takes. Rinse and repeat that experience across millions. Now those cocky kids are grown adults who sit their crying about life and how everyone else must have been lucky.

Anecdotes are not evidence. The fact that you managed to make a success of your life despite a poor background does not prove that over the population as a whole, your family wealth, background, connections and attitudes to education and advancement don’t play a massive role.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/akillewald/files...

People on the right love to focus on individual success stories as a way of deflecting attention from how the structural inequalities in society help the rich stay rich.

[Skeptisk]

Ken_Code said:

No-one is claiming that it doesn’t.

But they are implying that anyone can be rich and that if you are not it is your own fault.

[Skeptisk]

beagrizzly said:

Missy Charm said:

It's not good though, is it. All one has to do is look at the winding up and striking off section of The Gazette to see the other side: the plethora of dreams broken on the roulette wheel of commerce. I've known many, many people who didn't think they were 'too good' for anything, worked every hour God sent and still didn't, for whatever reason, make it. Celebrate success if you wish, but don't become blind to failure.

A point too many wannabe 'entrepreneurs' miss - that for every one person who started a business and has become successful and wealthy, there's probably at least 100 that have failed or are just about surviving.

The vast majority of small businesses fail yet as a society our economic growth depends on people being unrealistically optimistic about success and so willing to give it a go.