Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Ten Million Millionaires

According to this article on the CNN website this morning, the number of persons in the world with total assets of more than a million dollars has now exceeded ten million.

Ten million millionaires. That's a lot.

Of course, I'm not one of them, nor am I ever likely to be. I'm just an ordinary fellow who's happy when the balance in his checkbook has four figures, and they're not evenly divided on the left and right of the decimal point. If the bills are paid and there's enough left over for a new book or a few downloads from iTunes or a Berry Smoothie at Costco, I'm a happy guy.

But then, a million isn't what it used to be. At one time, a millionaire was someone who'd really made it, who commanded respect in the corridors of economic power. To paraphrase a brokerage firm's ad, when a millionaire talked, people listened.

Nowadays, the millionaires get sent out of meetings to fetch coffee for the billionaires. And I know from countless Pentagon budget meetings over the years that a million is an almost embarrassingly small number...many budget figures are rounded to the nearest million. Millions are almost decimal dust on the economic floor. If your program has a budget of a mere million dollars, it's liable to be axed to help pay for something bigger.

If you're one of those newly minted millionaires, I don't mean to rain on your parade. Congratulations, pip-pip-cheerio, and all that. Just remember that money can't buy you friends.

But it can get you a better class of enemy. It worked for America, after all.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

9 comments:

The Mistress of the Dark said...

I'm with you on that one. I'm happy when I can get a nice latte or something from Starbucks or at this point a BK Joe, Mocha iced coffee. Yum!

KKTSews said...

That's "budget dust" in my years of military budget work. Pentagon budgeting bares little resemblence to real life in so many ways.

I wonder what a million in 1908 would equal today? That is the era that forms our idea of a millionaire--but I'm guessing it would be closer to someone with 500 or more million now.

Amanda said...

I get a momentary kick out of checking our balance at the ATM machine. There are soooo many zeros for the Ruppiah, we're MULTI millionaires here. :)

Meera said...

That's very well worded! Would you mind if I use this as my next cartoon idea? (with due credits for inspiration to you, obviously!)

Bilbo said...

Mistress - when I'm in Pittsburgh visiting my Dad over the July 4th weekend, I'll raise an iced latte in your honor. If I can still afford it.

Katherine - I was trying to think of a good date to reference for our concept of the meaning of "millionaire" - 1908 is probably as good as any. And I still have a cartoon in my collection from your AF days showing you as the Ninja Budget-cutter!

Amanda - I'll bet it's an experience seeing the huge numbers in your account...I was shocked that the stamp on the card you sent was for TEN THOUSAND Rupiahs. Goodness, I thought, she won't be able to feed Aaron for a week...

Life - be my guest!

Jean-Luc Picard said...

It seems like everybody is a millionaire now...almost!

Mike said...

Think about this. If you have no retirement income, just savings, at 2% intrest, $1,000,000 in the bank would make you $20,000 a year. And that's before taxes.

Meera said...

Thanks Bilbo, here it is: http://lifesacomicstrip.blogspot.com/2008/06/who-wants-to-be-millionaire.html

Mal Kiely [Lancelots Pram] said...

I'm rich in so many other ways! Mind you, all those extra zeros would help now and again... but not too many. heh heh.

Thanx for your blog.... I'm a new discoverer - luv your sense of humour. Thanks muchly.

Cyalayta
Mal :)