Do you know any truly rich people (someone who consistently maked $500+k per year)?

I now an optometrist who makes 500k.

What's worse?

He even says his job is simple; What looks better 1 or 2? then after that prescribes the glasses/contacts. and that's it. He doesn't do the other eye MRI scans and stuff, the other optometrists do that. Yep, he said he went to 9 years of school just to tell people that and make bank.

Yes. He still drives a 2004 Honda Pilot. No degree, but is in charge of over $250M of other peoples money.

Shaw Cove wrote:

so why... wrote:

That simply cannot be... They all inherited their money and work nothing for it, "bringing it in" strictly from the market! They spend freely and don't pay their fair share in taxes! My college professor told me so!

While I don't doubt that there are plenty of the leeches you describe lazing about in this country, the people I know in this income bracket have actually worked hard for their money and enjoy both the comforts that it gives them, as well as the satisfying sense of accomplishment that earning your own way in the world can offer.

Ummmm....ever heard of sarcasm?

My wife and I must have been close to that last year. She got laid off--nice severance package, but then was out of work for ~9 months. And I don't think I worked more than a couple of months--not by choice, but my temp gigs had dried up. We both were drawing unemployment, and needed it.

As someone said, *where* is important. Making $500k/yr in Manhattan does NOT make you "truly rich"--I wish!

just an opinion wrote:

Ummmm....ever heard of sarcasm?

Yep.

I probably know at least 500 people personally who make over $500K per year. There's over a dozen in my large family, yet most everyone in the family earns right around, or below the U.S. average.

I agree with those posters who have observed that the percentage of people who are nice and considerate and those who are mean and selfish are about the same for the people who make over $500K per year as it is for people in general.

Most of the top earners I know work much, much harder than the typical person does. A great many of them are obsessed with doing things nonstop and they found a thing that makes them money and they keep making it. That obsession runs through all economic groups, but for a person in a company or field that pays well, it's the most useful trait. Often, they don't care about the money. It's the doing they are addicted to and is its own motivation.

The guy who works at the public library and wants to reshelve every book in the entire library that's out of place every day before he goes home is very similar to a multimillionaire trader who finds mispriced assets to buy or sell all day long, in one market after another, from one time zone to the next. Doctors who do one surgery after another, 12 hours a day, 6 days per week, are much the same, as are attorneys who take on one case after another, hiring more and more attorneys to handle every case till they have to rent an entire building to house them. You'd think they'd stop when they have a lot of money, if you think their activity is primarily about money. It's not. They do it for 20 or 30 years, just like the shelver at the library, not knowing what to do otherwise and enjoying the challenge of doing it better the next day.

Knower of People wrote:

I probably know at least 500 people personally who make over $500K per year.

No, you don't.

atleast a dozen that we know personally enough that they came to our wedding. wife's aunt just sold a shopping center for $40mil, as a realtor. no college degree. how sweet it is.

dad's best friend pulls in 3-5Mil gross after taxes. not bad for one of the oldest haole families in hawaii.

my wife and i make a combined $100k/ year, and don't come close to the majority of our neighbor's income. that's what happens when many current and former Anaheim Angels players live in your hood.

i used to work at a car shop in newport beach. clients that i worked with on a daily basis were major CEO's in Irvine. I knew them personally a few years ago.

common thread: most are politically conservative, evangelical Christians.

500k is not truly 'rich'.

Being truly rich is having millions of dollars and not having to work, ever. The guy who makes 500k still has to go to work everyday and punch some kind of clock.

I know of one guy who inherited over 20 million dollars on his 18th birthday. He went to college and stayed in school for nearly 15 years and got 3 degrees, just studying whatever he enjoyed. He travels all the time, and does a lot of volunteering.

I have a lot of money. I still go to work everyday. It's good to stay grounded. If I didn't make myself hold down a job, I'd probably be dead in a few months to a year.

The goal is to someday trust myself to enjoy without excess.

otis wrote:

Knower of People wrote:

I probably know at least 500 people personally who make over $500K per year.

No, you don't.

Otis, I am older. Things develop over time. As a blue collar kid, many years ago, I had a scholarship to a fairly large private university that had a lot of students from wealthy families, many of whom became well placed in business. Then, I went to a top professional school. Since then I have worked in three firms where most of the seasoned people and your main work contacts make over $500K per year. I have always been a person who is very social, so it was gradual, city by city in places I worked or lived. There's three different cities where I personally know more than 100 in each place that make more than $500K.

I know someone very well who by age 30 probably knew over 500 people personally making a $1 million, virtualy all from work in international finance. My experience is far fewer people over $1 million, most of the ones over $500K I know are below $1 million annually. I probably know less than 50 people personally who make more than $1 million and no one personally, who has $100 million, unlike a previous poster.

Personally I know several people who became ambassadors, several who had network television shows, several university presidents, and probably about a hundred people overall who get or once had regular coverage in the news. It's been an interesting life so far, and I am semi-retired, but I do know a lot of people mostly from prior decades. My life now is more quiet.

My parent currently makes just over that working as VP. in my town there are many multi millionaires so it's not a big deal. We actually have the smallest house on my street. The success of my parent has given me a bit of head start financially though - college and grad school paid for in full, have a good roth IRA and life savings account with no debt, but other than that 500k and a little more, while great, is not that unusual or extraordinary IMO, but at the same time I am grateful and will be grateful if I make the equiv of that at a later stage of my career, inflation adjusted

It should be noted that there can be a big difference between someone with a ton of accumulated wealth and someone who makes 500K or more. You can have a mountain of wealth and be very rich but only make $200,000. If you have a huge mansion, a couple luxury vacation homes, a yacht, a couple nice cars, and they are all fully bought and paid for, you don't need to "make" a lot of money to live the high life.

Thats why it is a lot of BS when you hear that the "rich" pay a lot of taxes. A high salaried person or someone with a new successful business will pay a ton of taxes. But someone with a mountain of wealth who has property bought and paid for and a huge stock portfolio where they can perpetually defer taxes are not too worried about taxes.

thanks for the insight ryan, for some silly reason i thought that Mansion+LuxuryVacationHome(s)+Yacht= property taxes up the wazoo but obviously i have no idea. thank you for enlightening us all that the wealthy do not pay over 95% of the income taxes in this country- oh wait, nevermind.

ryan foreman wrote:If you have a huge mansion, a couple luxury vacation homes, a yacht,.....Thats why it is a lot of BS when you hear that the "rich" pay a lot of taxes....

'the people I know in this income bracket have actually worked hard for their money'

Do they work 10 x harder than someone on $50k?

Probably not, because they possess marketable skills and are highly competent. If you have a rare talent and can perform it well, you will find that someone will pay you large sums of money to provide your services.

In some cases, though, yes, someone who makes 500K does work ten times harder than someone making 50K. Depends on what the meaning of "harder" is. No one will ever pay a carpenter 500K/yr because he/she is highly competent. The work is hard, but competency is relatively easy to achieve. Likewise, no one will ever pay an orthopedic surgeon 50K/yr, because competency is extremely difficult to achieve, and the work is demanding (in its own way).

This blubbering about "harder" work for lower pay is ridiculous. If we all smashed rocks against other rocks to make a living, there would be some sense to this argument. People who worked harder would smash more rocks than people who were lazy (notwithstanding differences in strength, etc.)

But, shit ain't like that.

I house sat for a family last summer- dad was president of a large university, mom was a doctor. They had their fair share of issues just like any family does- logistical issues of who's bringing the kids to piano practice and finding a baby sitter so they can go to dinner. This was not unlike any other family I've known.

The largest different I saw between them and "normal" people is that when it came down to buying things- whether cars, appliances, food, clothes, school supplies, basically anything, they bought the best of the best. They could afford to do that. They had several nice cars, shopped for all their groceries at a very expensive organic store, and did their school shopping at J crew and Ralph Lauren. Their kids attended the best private school in the area, and they went on nice vacations to exclusive places in the summer when dad had time to do so.

One major downfall of this was that dad was hardly around because of his work. It sometimes seemed like they were always aware that Dad makes all this money for us but is it really worth it if he's never here?

This all being said they were the NICEST people in the world, they donated a lot of money, the mom organized a lot of fund raisers, they were always very nice to me and very fair, they had a lot of friends and a very full life...although I'm not sure if I would want to live like they did. Cool to see how the "other side" lives.

A good friend works at Google out in California. Free breakfast, lunch and dinner (if he chooses) every day. He describes them a gourmet meals. No clock to punch in or out, just get your project done when it is suppose to be. Rich with a capital R, wants anyone around him to know it. Slightly arrogant. Not just my view and not sour grapes either. Always bright in high school as he excelled in Math and Computers. Rich with a big house, but as I told him in an email, it won't get him into Heaven. He never responded again, not once. Hmmmmmm....?

Knower of People wrote:

I agree with those posters who have observed that the percentage of people who are nice and considerate and those who are mean and selfish are about the same for the people who make over $500K per year as it is for people in general.

I find that it depends on how they make their money.

Some people make it through dumb luck-- right place, right time, or they took a huge risk and it happened to pay off. I'm including everyone from artists/musicians to landlords who got a big break by buying the right property at the right time.

Those people tend to mirror the general population.

Other people make it through their professional skills-- lawyers, doctors, business execs, whatever. They are more likely to ascribe their success to their own personal virtues-- and they become more arrogant from the population at large.