7. The One Percenter
In 1997, for a story titled "Who Me, Rich?" contributing editor Richard Todd traveled among the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans — those with a net worth, at that time, of at least $2.5 million. Todd cites the observation of conservative thinker David Frum that America has become home to history's first "mass upper class" and that "nothing like this immense crowd of wealthy people has been seen in the history of the planet." Todd takes it from there:
"Perhaps in the end, wealth is in the eyes of the beholder; but in the eyes of those who are earning and spending this new money, what appears to be happening is a constant upward redefinition of the middle class. Large numbers of people living in apparent luxury no longer seem so rarefied, and their presence stimulates restlessness and desire among a middle class that used to think of its own life as the norm. This is perhaps the real meaning of the mass elite. Thus is ambition, upward longing, stimulated. Seen from high atop Marketing Mountain, this is a truly glorious system, breeding constantly self-replenishing appetites. From the top of Philosophy Mountain, the view is less happy — a land of continual discontent."
16. The Millionaire Next Door
Now isn't that nice — money values so old they seem new.
Suddenly, everybody seemed to be rich. And if somehow you failed to be rich yourself, the ever-present reminders of the wealth all around you could have become disquieting. At this moment of jealousy and greed, along came a book with a perfect title, evoking as it did the dreams and the anxieties of the decade: The Millionaire Next Door. Who is this charmed figure?
Well, you might think of that guy whose company went public, who invites you to an "informal barbecue" and then uncorks a couple of bottles of 1975 Pichon-Lalande to go with your hamburgers. Or the woman with the spun-gold hair who drives the Porsche and who always seems to have just returned from someplace like the Seychelles. Or that startlingly young couple who bought the Victorian on the corner and put in that kitchen with all the granite and the six-burner Viking range and the double-wide Sub-Zero....
You might think of such people, but you'd be wrong, according to Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, the two who wrote the book. Such images of louche affluence, they say, miss the point altogether.
If you want to conjure up America's typical millionaire, think of somebody such as Frank — Frank and his wife, Helen, those quiet people who own the laundromat across town. Turns out that they actually own a couple of blocks, including a few apartment buildings. Frank used to be a plumbing contractor, sold his business, but still does maintenance on his properties. They're both apt to be over there on weekends painting, and Helen keeps the books. Dinner at their house — good wholesome fare, but when they say "potluck" they mean it. Not that they don't like their pleasures. They like to travel but have no appetite for the exotic: "There's so much to see in this country."
The simple message of The Millionaire Next Door, published in 1996, is that frugality is the road to riches. The book may have been bought by readers looking for a handy guide to instant wealth, but they found something different, advice that was older than the old economy, as old as Poor Richard's Almanac. Save. Work hard. Practice thrift. Invest. That's what the millionaire does.
In the Stanley-Danko worldview, people aren't lucky and people aren't disadvantaged or left behind. You don't need an advanced degree "or even intelligence." It is all a matter of something more fundamental: backbone, discipline, character. In some strange way, the message is comforting. The authors are saying that the rules haven't changed after all. It's still the same old honest American game. The social machinery is working just fine, opportunity is all around you, and virtue will be rewarded.
Stanley and Danko, of course, support their argument with data drawn from surveys of the affluent.
Half the millionaires spent less than $250 on a wristwatch. Half have never spent more than $30,000 for a motor vehicle. Ford edges out Cadillac as their preferred make of car. They tend to like "full-size automobiles that have a low cost per pound." Only 25 percent are driving the current year's model of anything. They are about 10 times more likely to hold a Penney's card than a Diners Club card.
The numbers are surprising, and fun. To be sure, you have to look at the composite picture a bit skeptically. A certain fallacy is built into the book's brilliant title. We still use millionaire colloquially as a symbol of great wealth, but a net worth of $1 million hardly insures a life of ease. And the authors' methodology remains a bit obscure. The few details they give suggest that (as one would guess) their interviews concentrated on the bottom of the top.
Moreover, our eyes don't utterly deceive us: The leisure class hasn't given up on display and self-indulgence (a good thing too, or else the economy would really be in the tank). Somebody buys those yachts in Nantucket Harbor and those Malibu beach houses.
So the book did not win any prizes as sociology. But as self-help, you have to admit, one could do a lot worse. Budget. Live well within your means. Invest for the long haul. It's hardly new, but it's not bad advice.
As the 1990s became a memory, many people wished that they had taken it. |
