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To: Jill who wrote (12961)	10/6/2004 8:43:49 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 116555

The typical family in Los Angeles driving their leased car while living in their bank-owned home have very modest assets. One couple who had recently purchased a new $691k condo in Beverly Hills will have no home equity after selling their prior condo for less than they hoped. A friend of the wife confronted her saying, "Betty, I hope you realize you're poor." Of course they drive a new leased Jaguar and a leased Mercedes and have designer furniture. Their son attends private school. But they are poor. I'm fairly certain they have a negative net worth and they're about age 50. Because of this, I'm not overly surprised that the average 50 year old American has only $40,000 in net worth, including home equity. We can back out the categories used on BankRate.com with two other items on their list. Average household debt in the U.S., not counting mortgage debt, is about $14,500 Average credit card debt among all American households is $8,400. Obviously other debt (automobile etc) equals $6,100. Total non-mortgage debt is $14,500. So for sake of argument, let's say this it's fair to use this number for 50 year olds. Their total assets are then $40k plus $14.5k or $54,500. This includes home equity, bank accounts, stock, bonds, and all other financial assets. This excludes household effects such as clothing and furniture. A disturbing statistic from the report – the ratio of household debt to household assets today stands at about 17 per cent compared to just 9 per cent in the 1990s.

To: Jill who wrote (12961)	10/6/2004 9:37:13 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 116555

Please disregard this sentence which got trapped at the end of a previous post when I deleted almost all of a paragraph. A disturbing statistic from the report – the ratio of household debt to household assets today stands at about 17 per cent compared to just 9 per cent in the 1990s. This information, from the Australian Reserve Bank, refers to Australian households. While disturbing by Australian standards, these numbers would represent an almost unimaginable improvement in American debt ratios.