Let Them Eat Cake

As I have written before, often to support my argument that the profit and loss figures of someone else are all but meaningless, wealth is relative. Ones age makes a big difference, as this article on Yahoo!Finance earlier this week explains.

The highlights are that in the USA, to be in top 1% by wealth, you need a total net worth of $8.4 million, but that's a sweeping average across all age groups. To be in your 40s and in the top 1%, you need 'only' $5.8 million to get into the one percent. For people in their 50s, it takes nearly $10 million. For people in their 60s, it takes around $11.6 million.

In other words, it takes twice as much wealth to be in the one percent for someone who's 65 compared to someone who's 45.

So the next time someone posts their P&L, it should be accompanied by their age and what percentage of their net worth is involved.

For anyone looking to increase their wealth, and if you are reading this, the chances are good that you are, there's some advice from Australia's richest person, and the world's richest woman, climate change skeptic Gina Rinehart (pictured), who recently wrote (again courtesy of Yahoo!Finance):

"There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself - spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing and more time working."

"The lessons are the same. You can't get rich without working hard, taking risks, investing and reinvesting your profits."

Rinehart's an expert - she made her money the old-fashioned way: She inherited it. Born on third base, and thinks she hit a triple.

On the subject of eating (cake), at the end of Wikipedia's entry on her, there is this amusing piece, that may well be untrue, (surely it's too funny to be genuine?) and erased by the time you read this:

Let Them Eat Corn Dogs

But where's the fun in being given your money? Where's the challenge? It's got to be much more fun to win it on the exchanges!