That's Rich

Kevin Drum decides to define rich.

....What is "rich"? I'm here to give you an answer with no shilly-shallying. I believe that Americans, for better or worse, believe that rich = millionaire. That is, someone with a million dollars in net worth.

But here's the catch: that's what Americans thought a century ago. In today's money, that's about $20 million or so. So today, "rich" is anyone with a net worth of $20 million.

His commenters comment, with most seeming to think $20M is a bit high. I have noticed, though, that rich people are remarkably unwilling to admit it. They always have some variation on so and so are rich, but I'm not. Some of it might be Jesus's "harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle." Even the unbeliever might fear the scorn of the religious. Part of it is comparison, of course. The cleverest definition I saw on Drum's site was "somebody who makes two or three times what I make."

American Conservatives, by whom I mean those whom Teddy Roosevelt called "malefactors of great wealth," their minions, hangers on, and dupes, like to talk about income quintiles. Thus George Will can get on TV on a Sunday and proclaim that wealthy, by whom he means the top twenty percent, are teachers and firemen. In the same vein, the New York Times defines the second, third and fourth quintiles as the lower middle class, middle class, and upper middle class. Make $18,000 a year dude? You are middle class. $80K annually puts you up there with George Soros and Bill Gates.

It still seems odd to me that Americans generally would think that today's million still made one rich in the way it did 100 years ago.

To help clear up the confusion, I hereby submit my own taxonomy.

• $1 million - micro rich. You could live like a pauper without working, or if you had a good job, buy a nice house and car. If you have kids, get ready to go broke sending them to college.
• $5 million - mini rich. OK, you can afford a nice house and don't really even have to work, if you are willing to forego most luxuries.
• $20 million - rich. Go ahead goof off. Buy the house and vacation cottage. Forget the private jet, and try to think about a nice little 35 foot sail boat.
• $100 million - very rich. Think Cindy McCain. You can afford a few houses and maybe one of those tinny little mini jets to fly around between them. Forget the G4, the mansion in London, and your own football team.
• $500 million - super rich. A mansion, servants, maybe even your own G5.5 - but a time share would be more prudent. If you really want to splurge go for the football team or the almost mega yacht (70 meters, say), but not both.
• $2.5 billion - mega rich. Mansions all over, your own private luxury 767, the mega yacht, and the baseball team. Stay away from Larry Ellison, Paul Allen, and Russian kleptocrats - those guys love to rub your nose in your poverty.
• $12.5 billion - fabulously wealthy. Private islands are nice, and so is your own space program.
• $50 billion - hors category. Get your own country, like Sheldon Adelson. I think Israel and Macao are already taken.