Free Republic

Daniel Gross reports: … the poll for the House vote in the East showed that the 25 percent of the electorate making over $100,000 went big for Democrats overall, 57-42, compared with a 49-48 margin in 2004. In 2006, those making between $150,000 and $200,000 voted for Democratic candidates by a whopping 63-37 majority, and those making more than $200,000 went Democratic by a slim 50-48 margin. That’s a huge shift from 2004, when Republicans took the $150,000 to $200,000 demographic 50-48 and rang up a huge victory among the over $200,000 set: 56-40. In 2006, Democratic candidates racked up...

Which of the following families is "richer"? The first family consists of a wife who has recently become a medical doctor, and she makes $160,000 per year. Her husband is a small business entrepreneur who makes $110,000 per year, giving them a total family income of $270,000 per year. However, they are still paying off the loans the wife took out for medical school and the loans the husband took out to start his business, amounting to debts of $300,000. Their total assets are valued at $450,000; hence, their real net worth or wealth (the difference between gross assets and...

Obama rips McCain for $5 million "rich" definition Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:24pm EDT ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (Reuters) - How much money makes a person rich? That's the latest question dividing Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. presidential race. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ripped Republican rival John McCain on Monday for joking during a televised discussion on values that $5 million fit the definition for being monetarily rich. "I guess if you're making $3 million a year, you're middle class," Obama told a campaign event in New Mexico.

Wellthy & Wise by: Emily Miller, August 04, 2008 Education and health: two seemingly separate domains, but according Robert Kaestner, professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the two are closely intertwined. Education is a “powerful” determinant of health, the professor decrees, making good education policy good health policy. According to Kaestner’s longitudinal study, education is a greater “predictor” of health and health behaviors than income level. He found that individuals who graduated high school raised their physical health by ¼th of the standard deviation and decreased the probability of poor health by thirty-five percent, while those who earned...

Asking for animal shelter donations instead of presents for his 11th birthday was “no biggie” for Mac Gandy, but it makes him a hero to the Florence Area Humane Society. Mac decided after a visit to the shelter in early July, a couple of weeks before his birthday, that he wanted to help the animals in need of a good home. “I felt bad for them,” he said after he and his mother, Michelle Gandy, delivered the food, cleaning supplies and other items he’d collected. “It always tugs at his heart,” his mother said. The Gandys aren’t sure exactly how...

Asking for animal shelter donations instead of presents for his 11th birthday was “no biggie” for Mac Gandy, but it makes him a hero to the Florence Area Humane Society. Mac decided after a visit to the shelter in early July, a couple of weeks before his birthday, that he wanted to help the animals in need of a good home. “I felt bad for them,” he said after he and his mother, Michelle Gandy, delivered the food, cleaning supplies and other items he’d collected. “It always tugs at his heart,” his mother said. The Gandys aren’t sure exactly how...

In large measure our wealth isn’t the product of capitalism, it is capitalism. It’s an old story. Loving parents provide a generous environment for their offspring. Kids are given not only ample food, clothing and shelter, but the emotional necessities as well: encouragement, discipline, self-reliance, the ability to work with others and on their own. And yet, in due course, the kids rebel. Some even say their parents never loved them, that they were unfair, indifferent, cruel. Often, such protests are sparked by parents’ refusal to be even more generous. I want a car, demands the child. Work for it,...

About seven years ago, University of Chicago economists Kerwin Kofi Charles and Erik Hurst were researching the “wealth gap” between black and white Americans when they noticed something striking. African Americans not only had less wealth than whites with similar incomes, they also had significantly more of their assets tied up in cars. The statistic fit a stereotype reinforced by countless bling-filled hip-hop videos: that African Americans spend a lot on cars, clothes, and jewelry—highly visible goods that tell the world the owner has money. But do they really? And, if so, why? The two economists, along with Nikolai Roussanov...

Pelosi's Wealth Greater Than Other Congressional Leaders By Fred Lucas June 17, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the wealthiest of the top congressional leaders, with total assets valued at somewhere between $30 million and $131 million, according to federal financial disclosure statements. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has limited resources compared to Pelosi's stocks and real estate ventures, though Boehner's assets themselves range between $2.1 million and $7.9 million. The financial disclosure forms for members of the House of Representatives were released Monday. Senate reports were released on Friday. The reports show that...

- In Sweden that is. All the same, if various experts are right, the Nordic countries are not only the richest part of the world, but also global leaders in the domain of QUALITY of life. Therefore, living in this part of Stockholm is probably as good as life gets, or? The article: "The Stockholm suburb of Danderyd is the best municipality in which to live, according to a new ranking by the magazine Fokus. Lund and nearby Lomma in southern Sweden follow closely behind. Ljusnarsberg municipality in the Bergslagen region of central Sweden ended up in last place. The...

The signs of the super rich in Reykjavik are as clear as the snow on the black volcanic mountains beyond its harbour.

China to leapfrog Britain in household wealth Last Updated: 10:47am BST 07/05/2008 Chinese households will have the third greatest spending power in the world within a decade, leapfrogging their British counterparts. Barclays Wealth and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked China's total household sector spending power at number seven in 2007. The UK was ranked third. But in a global forecast released today, Barclays and the EIU will say China's booming economy will propel it to number three by 2017, just ahead of Britain at number four. Although the figures are skewed because China is so populus, it is also...

For more than 200 years, America reigned as the worlds most productive, prosperous, powerful and generous nation on earth. Like all nations, America is nothing more or less than the sum of its people and their belief system. In the case of America, they were once a people who had risked all to gain national independence and sovereignty, individual liberty and personal freedom for every man, woman and child. Generation after generation volunteered the blood of its best citizens to protect individual rights from all who would attack them in the name of some greater common good. The brave who...

The British-born rich are being left behind in the wealth stakes by an international “superclass” based in London... Only six of the top twenty places in the list, published yesterday, go to people who were born in Britain. Britain’s two wealthiest men are once again the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of Chelsea Football Club. Mr Mittal, 57, who retains his Indian passport but spends much of his time in London, tops the list for the fourth consecutive year... Mr Mittal is joined in the top 20 by foreign-born newcomers such as Alisher Usmanov, a...

LONDON (AP) — The collective wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest people went up by nearly 15 percent last year, and more than half the country's 75 billionaires are foreign-born, according to a list published by the Sunday Times newspaper.

[snip] It sure seems like the rich are more likely to be “very happy” than the rest of us. Is this a big effect? In 2005, Robert Frank argued: When we plot average happiness versus income for clusters of people in a given country at a given time, we see that rich people are in fact much happier than poor people. It’s actually an astonishingly large difference. There’s no one single change you can imagine that would make your life improve on the happiness scale as much as to move from the bottom 5 percent on the income scale to...

Lisa Keister has scanned the Bible and found nearly 2,000 verses in the New Testament that touch on the topic of money. It's those very verses that may be keeping many conservative Protestants from building up long-term wealth, she says. Jesus warned his followers not to "store up for yourselves treasures on Earth," and later cautioned that it will be "hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven." Perhaps the best known is the admonition that "the love of money is the root of all evil." According to data analyzed by Keister, a Duke University sociologist, the...

Life can have its little irritations when you're cruising around the world on your £100million superyacht. For example, the endless vista of clear blue sea fails to provide much greenery to ease the eye - apart from the odd tropical island. For the owner of a forthcoming craft named WallyIsland, however, this will not be a problem. For he, or she, will have a personal ocean-going garden. The 325ft-long yacht is to feature a growing area with shrubbery and flower beds, kept healthy by an irrigation system. It will also have a tennis court, pool and five accommodation decks including...

Federal Reserve Report Shows Homeowner Equity Dipping Below 50 Percent, Lowest on Record NEW YORK (AP) -- Americans' percentage of equity in their homes has fallen below 50 percent for the first time on record since 1945, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Homeowners' percentage of equity slipped to a revised lower 49.6 percent in the second quarter of 2007, the central bank reported in its quarterly U.S. Flow of Funds Accounts, and declined further to 47.9 percent in the fourth quarter -- the third straight quarter it was under 50 percent. That marks the first time homeowners' debt on their...

Incredibly, Chandra never told us what total US household net worth is, only supplying the amount of the decrease. Of course, many readers will see the $532.9 billion decline, a very big number, and think the worst -- that our portfolios are disappearing, that our homes are becoming worthless, and that the economy is irretrievably going into the tank (Was that the point, Ms. Chandra?). Additionally, Chandra never told us what has happened to household net worth between the third quarter of 2002, the last time it declined, and the most recently reported quarter. Here are the key numbers Chandra...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton declares, "The economy is not working for middle-class and working families," noting the typical American family earns less now than it did seven years ago. Citing the same trend, her Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama, promises "to put America back on the path to prosperity." Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, says, "It is harder for families to weather hard economic times." The candidates' pitches are aimed at wooing the vast majority of Americans who consider themselves middle class. Those people tell pollsters that they are increasingly anxious about their financial security, a feeling...

London's role as a tax haven for the world's billionaires and millionaires is starting to look less assured, thanks to a shakeup in the country's tax-friendly status. The British government is planning to force anyone who has claimed non-domiciled status for seven of the past 10 years to either pay pound 30,000 ($59,000) in annual fees, or pay taxes to the UK for their outside earnings. Though the government has reportedly dithered on the plan due to a recent uproar from businesses and lobbyists, a Treasury spokesman told Forbes.com on Wednesday that the policy was set to be implemented this...

As we each search for our personal pot of gold, many of us wonder whether the rainbow leading us to a six-figure paycheck has to be so long. We want financially rewarding jobs, but not everyone is eager to commit the time and money necessary to complete a medical or law degree. The good news is that, even though statistics have shown that more education translates to higher earnings, there are still plenty of six-figure salary jobs for those of us who have decided not to take the seven-years-and-a-stethoscope route. The following is a list of seven lucrative fields in...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Bush's assurances that we'll all be "just fine" if he and Congress can work out an economic stimulus package seem a little hollow this morning. Much like Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's assurances last May that the subprime mortgage meltdown would be contained and not affect the broader economy. And it seems Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has spent most of the past year trying to influence Chinese economic policy rather than setting the direction of U.S. economic policy. There is no question that Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Bush's assurances that we'll all be "just fine" if he and Congress can work out an economic stimulus package seem a little hollow this morning. Much like Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's assurances last May that the subprime mortgage meltdown would be contained and not affect the broader economy. And it seems Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has spent most of the past year trying to influence Chinese economic policy rather than setting the direction of U.S. economic policy. There is no question that Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid...

New Jersey has the most millionaire households in the country, according to a marketing company's fifth annual ranking. The Garden State moved up from No. 2 in 2005 and 2006 to No. 1 last year on the index, compiled by Phoenix Affluent Marketing Service, which does research for companies that sell luxury products, investments and the like to the wealthy. According to the service, in 2007, 7.12 percent of New Jersey's 3.2 million households had a total of $1 million or more liquid or investable assets. That includes items such as savings, stocks and bonds, precious metals, the cash value...

Beirut cashes in on wealth of archaeological sitesAs New construction unearths ancient treasures, the law says excavations must precede buildings By Hassan Abdo Special to The Daily Star Wednesday, December 19, 2007 BEIRUT: Passing through the many narrow avenues that make up Achrafieh, few would realize that major archeological excavations are under way all around them. The Beirut neighborhood has been experiencing a development boom in the past few years, and construction projects are ongoing, yet in the midst of all this local archaeologists have been experiencing a boom of their own. Construction companies clearing away old buildings to make...

Being broke need not mean social death in Sweden - as long as you are well-educated. But for Americans and Russians having a good all-round education is no substitute for having cash, according to a new survey on status symbols in the three countries. The international survey by analysts United Minds asked 1,000 people in each country what values confer status. 'Bling' items such as expensive jewellery and designer clothes come well down the list for Swedes, while featuring more highly for Americans and, particularly, Russians. "Sweden is the only country where you can be penniless but well-read and still...

In bars, restaurants and homes across Sweden champagne is flowing in abundance as Swedes enjoy a seemingly endless thirst for the bubbly beverage, spurred by a gastronomic "revolution" and a rosy economy. Champagne sales at stores run by the alcohol distribution monopoly Systembolaget are expected to hit an all-time high of one million bottles this year, excluding sales in bars and restaurants. That figure can be compared to 738,000 bottles sold last year and 287,000 a decade ago. "Drinking champagne is usual now and it's common not only at the weekend or to celebrate a special event, it's an everyday...

Politics: Democrats have always insisted their party is the friend of the poor and unfortunate. But a new analysis suggests their carefully cultivated image is false.By crunching Internal Revenue Service data, the Heritage Foundation has found that the Democratic Party is the party of the rich. Democrats now represent a majority of the country's wealthiest congressional districts. What's more, better than half of the richest U.S. households — defined in the analysis as single filers with yearly incomes above $100,000 and married filers who top $200,000 a year — are concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats, not those hate-the-poor...

Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts. In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats. He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats. "If you take the wealthiest one-third of the...

DUBLIN, Ireland - Heather Mills McCartney, who is reportedly seeking millions of dollars in her breakup with Paul McCartney, denounced the world's rich as misers and snobs Wednesday. Mills McCartney delivered the critical comments during her 90-minute speech to the debating society of Trinity College Dublin. Former model Mills McCartney, 39, married the 65-year-old music legend in 2002 and gave birth to the couple's only child, Beatrice, a year later. But the couple separated last year, and McCartney filed for divorce alleging "unreasonable behavior" by his wife. Mills McCartney said she was reluctantly obliged to befriend the world's wealthy because...

LONDON - Roman Abramovich is Russia's richest man, with an estimated fortune of more than $20 billion. But if you want to see his money, visit London. Abramovich owns the Chelsea soccer club, one of Britain's most famous. He also has bought several homes in the British capital and countryside, including a 160-hectare country estate that once belonged to the late King Hussein of Jordan. Russian businessmen have flourished under President Vladimir Putin, with the number of millionaires rising sharply every year. But despite Russia's growing economy and Putin's firm grip on the government, many of the country's wealthiest still...

As his wedding day approached last spring, Marshall Whittey found that his money could not keep pace with the grandiosity of his plans. But rather than scale back, he chose instead, like millions of homeowners across the country, to borrow against the soaring value of his home. He and his bride, Holly Whittey, exchanged vows on the grounds of a sumptuous private estate in the Napa Valley. They spent their honeymoon at a resort in Tahiti. But now, in an ominous portent for the national economy, Mr. Whittey has grown tight with his money. His home is worth far less...

This article is a compilation of income and wealth statistics by percentile. It is fairly comprehensive. Among the quotes are: "...Whenever I slip these tidbits into cocktail party chatter, people are surprised to realize how little money it takes to win a gold star from the Fed. If you and yours are bringing in $40,000 a year, you're doing better than half the households in America. Or, as a Washington think tank recently pointed out: If you're a teacher married to a policeman, your combined household income puts you in the top 25 percent of all households in the nation....

INDIA's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has bought his wife a luxury jet with entertainment cabins, a sky bar and fancy showers for her birthday, a newspaper said yesterday. Ambani, who owns the country's biggest private company, Reliance Industries Ltd, gifted the $US60 million ($66 million) Airbus plane to wife Neeta on her 44th birthday on Thursday, the Mumbai Mirror newspaper said. The jet is custom-fitted with an office and a cabin with game consoles, music systems, satellite television and wireless communication, the report said. It also has a master bedroom, a bathroom with a range of showers and a bar...

Big Government: Washington pundits moan about the "rich getting richer" on Wall Street. But new census data reveal the seat of wealth in this country has shifted to their own backyard. The nation's capital has replaced Silicon Valley and the New York area as the center of affluence in America. The wealthiest Americans are no longer just investors and entrepreneurs, but federal workers and contractors. There's something really rotten about this trend. How can the seat of government in a capitalist society double as its seat of wealth? The late Milton Friedman, who warned about the growing mix of government...

Income disparity reaches highest since 1920s, paper reports, with recent Wall Street boom partly to blame. The income gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans grew to its widest level since the 1920s, according to a report published Friday. Citing Internal Revenue Service data, the Wall Street Journal reported that the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans earned 21.2 percent of all the nation's income in 2005, up from the previous high of 20.8 percent in 2000. Conversely, the bottom half of working Americans earned just 12.8 percent of all the nation's income, down from 13.4 percent in 2004 and...

A Mexican migrant to the U.S. is five times more productive than one who stays home. Why is that? . . . It is because the average American has access to over $418,000 in intangible wealth, while the stay-at-home Mexican's intangible wealth is just $34,000. . . . [Intangible wealth is] factors - such as trust among people in a society, an efficient judicial system, clear property rights and effective government [and education]. . . . Once one takes into account all of the world's [land and] natural resources and produced capital [such as buildings and machinery], 80% of the...

Staff at a hotel in western Sweden have received what must be their best-ever tip: shares worth 1.5 million kronor ($225,000). The shares have been given to the staff of the Laholmen Hotel in Strömstad, on the Norwegian border, by 93-year-old Stockholmer Matts O Westerberg. He has been a regular guest at the hotel since 1986. The dividends from the shares are to be given to the hotel's employee of the year. "I was given such a fantastic welcome from my very first visit that I have been back for a couple of weeks in the spring and a couple...

Maryland knocked New Jersey out of the top spot this year, while Mississippi and West Virginia were the poorest states in the Union. Maryland is now the wealthiest state in the union, as measured by median household income, according to the latest stats from the Census Bureau.

CARACAS, Venezuela – The Venezuelan government on Friday denied any link to a businessman who was stopped at an Argentine airport carrying a suitcase filled with nearly $800,000 in cash. The Venezuelan businessman, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, carried the money from Caracas to Buenos Aires on a flight chartered by the Argentine government, and the undeclared funds were seized by customs agents last weekend. “We don't have anything to do with that plane or with that trip ... nothing to do with that businessman,” Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas told reporters. The incident has shaken the Argentine government, prompted one...

Romney is richest '08 contender by far: With assets worth an estimated $190 million to $250 million, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is easily the richest person running for president right now. "After Romney, the wealthiest candidates are (Sen. Hillary Rodham) Clinton, $10 million to $50 million; Democrat John Edwards, nearly $30 million; and Republican Rudy Giuliani, $13 million to $45 million. The wealth of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is held mostly by his wife, Cindy, who isn't required to report details of her assets."

GREENWICH, Conn. -- You know you're in a different kind of town when the signs against drunk driving show a line drawn through a Martini glass to which the artist thoughtfully added a stirrer. Greenwich, Conn., is one such town. Greenwich is home to billionaire hedge-fund managers, private-equity kings and corporate chieftains, as well as ordinary multi-multimillionaires. Interviewing people here requires leaving phone messages with au pairs and catching folks between board meetings. You'd think that Greenwich would be solid Bush-loving turf -- what with all those tax cuts for the rich. It is not. The voters are roughly 40...

By almost any definition — except his own and perhaps those of his neighbors here in Silicon Valley — Hal Steger has made it. Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States. Yet each day Mr. Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls “the Silicon Valley salt mines,” working as a marketing executive for...

So we are agreed. We are living in the second great Gilded Age, a time of startling personal wealth. In the West, the mansion after mansion with broad and rolling grounds; in the East, the apartments with foyers in which bowling teams could play. Or, on another level, the week's vacation in Disneyland or Dublin with the entire family--this in a nation in which, well within human memory, people with a week off stayed home and fixed things in the garage, or drove to the beach for a day and sat on a blanket from one of the kid's beds...

Over the last decade, luxury boat builders have begun building submarine yachts. Submarine construction technology has come a long way in the past century, and it's possible to build these boats at an affordable ($15-200 million) cost. They are safe, and there are about a hundred of them out there. A few companies have gained a lot of experience building subs for non-military underwater operations (academic research, oil exploration), which has created a cadre of information and technicians who can build these recreational subs. One of the largest civilian submarine yards is in Dubai, where 18 have been built so...

Norway has more millionaires, measured in US dollars, than any other country in the world in terms of its size.

It's Official: Study Confirms Arabs Buy Flashy Jewelry More Than Most By Debbie Schlussel One of the stereotypes Arabs frequently complain (or, at least, complained--past tense--before Hollywood whitewashed them post 9/11) about is their occasional portrayal as swarthy, flashy jewelry-wearing persons with a fetish for the garish. Now, a Capgemini/Merrill Lynch Financial Advisory survey confirms the stereotype as based much more in fact than in fiction. The study found that while there are rich people around the world, wealthy Arabs spent 1/3 to more than double the percentage of their wealth on jewelry than those from other regions of the...

WASHINGTON -- Seventy percent of Americans now say the economy is getting worse, a belief contradicted by a growing workforce, increased wages and household wealth, and a stock-market rally that has boosted worker-retirement investments.