POLL: How rich is rich?

[yurbud]

I read a book on this by Paul Fussell, and ironically, even the fairly rich define rich as someone 20% richer than them.


Rather than put this is dollar terms, I put this in terms of lifestyle and inherited lifestyle.

[MissB]

1. When your money works for you, rather than you working for your money.

It has nothing to do with how one lives their life, really. Lifestyles can be faked - i.e.- you can go into great debt jetting around the world and looking rich.

[Protagoras]

2. Enough money in offshore funds

that you don't worry about the looming economic crisis because you already own enough property and business interests abroad you'll easily relocate to your estates overseas if it gets ugly here.

[argyl]

3. $20,000 per year,according to Smirk's Social Security plan.

[Zorra]

4. When you have the time to live your own life and think your own thoughts,

are happy, and don't really care about your image or how much shit you have.

[sam sarrha]

5. I dont want an upperclass life style.. just a garden and healthcare

[XemaSab]

6. I'd say "rich"

is when you just don't have to worry about work or money for large stretches of time.

For example, I have a friend who got canned from his job for mouthing off to the boss, and he was totally unconcerned about it because he had 30K languishing in the bank, plus tens of thousands of dollars in stocks, plus VERY wealthy parents. So he basically hung out for a few months until it was time to go find another job.

He probably made about 120 a year 5 years ago. I have no idea what he makes today.

He's a single young man with no dependants, so the equation changes a lot for a family with kids and a house, but that's what "rich" is to me.

Not having to worry about work or money brings with it a lot of options not available to peons, and it also opens a lot of doors. However it comes at a cost. The people I have known who were born rich are some of the most miserable people I have ever met because I think they're unable to take pleasure in simple things, like eating out at a nice restaurant or going on a really nice trip once a year.

[yurbud]

9. the bare minimum is what Hollywood calls "FU money"

You have enough to say "fuck you" to anyone you work for and live comfortably until your next gig, however far off that is.

[woofless]

7. I live on a fixed income of $1200.00/mo,

Double that and I'd be rich.

Woof

[yurbud]

10. that's a different question--what's the LEAST you could live on

if it wasn't for student loans and a need to date, I could do $1200 a month.

[xxqqqzme]

8. now that's REAL money

'You can add to your wealth by getting congress to legalize monopoly powers for you or by starting a war.'


I had an uncle who would travel when 'n where 'n stay for however long he wanted - as a kid THAT was rich to me - still is come to think of it.

After he died, 10 of us each inherited $200,000 from his estate(I was finally able to buy my house). Yea, that is rich.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. I voted "enough to provide middle class for your kids"

Being realistic about it, you could do all of the first two without truly being rich. But if you can start letting other people live off you too, that's when you start to get wealthy.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Americans know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

You should try the same poll in Ethiopia, Sudan, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, and any number of other similar places.

Here we measure "success" by what we accumulate, not by what we do. Thus we have guys who can juggle stocks and property and make millions considered "successful", while someone who teaches our children while going bankrupt a "failure". "Successful" rock stars, actors, artists, writers, are judged not by their talent but by how much money they make.

The media brings us "news", not about what's happening in the world, but stories that will sell products. Fox vs CNN vs CBS vs NBC vs ABC isn't about quality, it's about their place on the stock market.

Automobiles aren't judged by fulfilling their purpose - transportation - but how "hot" they are.

We value "labels" more than what they label.

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

[oneold1-4u]

13. A friend

Ran into an old (long ago) friend yesterday and will consider myself very rich indeed if when I am 100, I can still run into a couple of friends from the past!