Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
Blogging in Russia
In a previous blog, I wrote that China has Millionaires out the Gazoo – about 300,000 altogether.
Russia also has a few millionaires to brag about…some 88,000 total. If Russia had the same population as China it would claim almost 3 times as many millionaires as China.
I read today how many millionaires the US has. Ready? 8.9 million households with a net worth of at least a million NOT including the value of their primary residence.
If the US had the population of China, it could claim 36 millionaires or more than 100 times that of China – per person that is.
If it had the population of Russia, the US would still have 5 times as many millionaires per person.
America still seems to be the place to get rich IF that’s YOUR American dream.
As for me, I’m not on the list.
How about you?
Interesting you bring this topic up ’cause I was just pondering that. I run and the other day I was running through one of the more affluent neighborhoods in the city. I run there because there are more trees and thus, more shade. Anyway, I started getting a little cheezed off, thinking about how one mortgage payment for one of those giant beautiful homes could pay half a year’s tuition for me. You know, those people aren’t any smarter or more capable than me. Likely they don’t work any harder than I do, and I’m fairly sure that they aren’t any more dedicated to their goals than I am to mine.
Then it occurred to me that the difference is that those people must be highly motivated to make money. (or have inheritance). That’s the difference. I’m pursuing a teaching career – money is not the focus for me. If it were, I imagine I’d be able to look forward to a 3 car garage and 2 mercedes in the driveway.
Wow, those are some amazing statistics. Thank you for sharing. It just goes to show you how unevenly the wealth of this world is distributed.
US is still the richest nation in the World. In terms of GDP per capita, US is US$36,000 but China is only around US$3,000. (Shanghai is the most prosperous city but GDP per capita is still around US$8,000). In other words, American should be richer than Chinese on average.
However, it is quite difficult to estimate the exact number of milionaires in China. Affluent people in China are used to take a low profile and they seldom let others know how much they have. Data collected from the Tax Bureau is far from accuracy because affluent people are very adroit at evading tax.
I think that there might be a similar percentage of people in the US keeping the same low profile.
I found a list of China’s billionaires yesterday. I will post that later.
Julie,
When I am not blogging, I teach – college and online. I’m not going to be rich either…for sure.
I love teachers…and runners. I used to do triathlons and have done several ultraruns as well.
Thanks for visiting and commenting.