Let's see. 10% is the "average" return that most people work with when dealing with things like mutual funds and most basic medium-risk investments. Yeah, I know you can't count on it, and the economy's been sucking lately. But you can still find decent investments. This doesn't really count real estate or anything like that. Additionally, people with a bit of money have access to investments that the rest of us who aren't millionaires don't. Such as hedge funds.
So you're telling me that in the last year, these billionaires only managed to get a 10% return? I mean, even if we're talking about someone owning a lot of real estate, that still appreciates in value over time (generally). Let's say that only half their value is actually invested in things that would appreciate (stock/fund/real estate/other investments, for example), which is really conservative. That's still only a 20% return. Sounds pretty poor to me.
Nail hit on head - economy of USA is in flat tail spin because these people are _only_ getting 10% return on billions. They should be increasing by 15-20% a year without sweating it.
I would wager that a majority of thier wealth is in stock -- especially for Gates, Allen, Bezos and the like. With the rebound in the stock market, they've seen significant increases. Particularly Bezos -- Amazon's stock has been soaring and his net worth is up more than 100%.
Plus, that 10% average return figure is bogus -- or at least has been for a few years now. Just being non-negative has been a goal for a lot of mutual funds of late. Also consider, if you have $5000 to invest, it's a lot easier to get
Actually, the NASDAQ is up 42% year-to-date, and up 53% since this day last year. (The DJIA 16%/18%.) This alone explains the increase -- the only reason it isn't more is that it's tempered by those more conservative "safe" investments.
Many of these people are wealthy on paper because much of their wealth is tied up in the stocks of the compan(y)(ies) that they are involved in. You and I are generally free to invest our money in any way we want, since we are using cash or cash-equivalents to invest. These people are "stuck" with stock that they cannot get rid of - at least for the short term. Therefore, I would expect their return to be lower than mine because they can't move their money around as easily.
My reading of the article wasn't that these 400 people gained an average of 10% on top of their existing wealth, but that the 400 richest this year are that much richer than the 400 richest last year. Probably you'd expect a lot of them to be the same people, with people near the top of the list only dropping off due to death and some of the people on the bottom switching in and out, and I'd think this would tend to push the total increase down from what you'd expect an individual to earn.
"Be there. Aloha."
-- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_
Sounds pretty bad to me (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're telling me that in the last year, these billionaires only managed to get a 10% return? I mean, even if we're talking about someone owning a lot of real estate, that still appreciates in value over time (generally). Let's say that only half their value is actually invested in things that would appreciate (stock/fund/real estate/other investments, for example), which is really conservative. That's still only a 20% return. Sounds pretty poor to me.
-Todd
Re:Sounds pretty bad to me (Score:1)
Nail hit on head - economy of USA is in flat tail spin because these people are _only_ getting 10% return on billions. They should be increasing by 15-20% a year without sweating it.
Re:Sounds pretty bad to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus, that 10% average return figure is bogus -- or at least has been for a few years now. Just being non-negative has been a goal for a lot of mutual funds of late. Also consider, if you have $5000 to invest, it's a lot easier to get
Re:Sounds pretty bad to me (Score:2)
Re:Sounds pretty bad to me (Score:1)
actually, (Score:0)
Re:Sounds pretty bad to me (Score:0)
that's my monthly rent, dude.
Re:Sounds pretty bad to me (Score:1)