[.OrgOwner]

Who's making the money then?

There are now more than 10 million "millionaires" in the world.

Brzil, Russia, India & China have the highest rates of growth when it comes to people bcoming millionaires. (more than 1 million $US in assetts not including their own home value) India was up 23% China 20% Brazil 10% and Russia 14%. These countries are closing in on the US with the most total millionaires (3,028,000). Switzerland has the highest number of millionaires per head of population (2.7%) UAE (1.7%) Singapore (1.7%) Norway (1.3%) Japan (1.2%) with the US and Germany on (1%)

Keep in mind a million dollars is not what is used to be thanks to global inflation a million today is worth just $455,000 1983 dollars. I guess if you want to stand out in the crowd these days you need to be a billionaire it would seem.

[LoopyLee]

You want to know something.. I would be happy with so much less..

Enough to buy our own home, enough so that I could give my kids some small measure of financial security in the future and enough so that I could get through each month without having to worry about anything.. Thats all..

[.OrgOwner]

I'm sure a lot of these people don't score too high on the happiness meter, you have a good point but at the same time enough money to fill the shed with toys would be nice. What I find interesting about these numbers is the shift in global wealth, the US is slipping.

[Surffrog]

It's not so much that the US is slipping more that other countries were opening up opportunities to allow their people to earn. The greatest increases in millionaires (as you can see) is in the emerging markets. Most of the 'New' Chinese millionaires made their money on the stock exchange. Why? Because the banks gave (and still give) next to no interest on savings and the government wanted to encourage investment flows (previously member of the public were not allowed to invest in the stock exchange).

It's not difficult to see how they made it. If they had just invested in the Chinese stock exchange, which was seeing a 10% increase in growth each year for the last five - six years, and with each dividend earned they plowed it back into the original investment, you can see the huge earning potential. The same thing was happening in India, too. The market was growing at a phenomenal rate a long with most entities in it. In other words, it was difficult not to make money in those areas.

Brazil and Russia are two totally different ball games and it would take a lot more time than I have available to explain it here. Suffice it to say, that corrupt governments working in conjunction with organised crime groups certainly helped. Also, in Russia, oil and gas helped forge the growth drive for them, but I expect to see those figures drop through the floor boards over the next year due to the massive price slump in oil.

[dicknose]

Remember that this is total assets, so for many millionaires this could be mostly due to their home. Sure plenty are business moguls or self employed - but Id guess quite a few are just salaried employees on a good wage who bought real estate at a good time.

The average house price in my city is about half a million dollars. Pick a "decent" suburb and its more likely to be a million. Pick a good suburb and its not hard to find units worth over a million.

[.OrgOwner]

Those numbers exclude a persons home, it was part of the criteria for making up the list.

[Surffrog]

Originally Posted by .OrgOwner

Those numbers exclude a persons home, it was part of the criteria for making up the list.

And, aside from Hong Kong, there aren't too many properties in China reaching the asking price Dicknose is talking about.