Wealth in America

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Recommended: Unequal distribution of wealth

Silicon Valley, California, is home to 250,000 millionaires, a staggering number, indeed. But just what does it mean to be rich? This paper examines one of the most powerful forces in the universe: wealth. Merriam Webster defines wealth as all property that has a money value or exchangeable value. Most people think of wealth as cash.

Dinesh DeSouza points out that "being rich means being able to do, within reason, whatever you want" (19). In political scientist Andrew Hacker's book Money, it is estimated that to be rich, one needs a yearly income of at least one million dollars and a wealth of 10 million.

But, even rich people have their limitations. A rich person can fly first class but he cannot own a private jet. He can acquire season tickets to a ballgame but he cannot buy a sports team. A rich family can own two houses but they cannot maintain homes around the world. Then can hire a live-in maid, yet they can't afford a squad of house-servants.

The latter of each of those examples is reserved for a special, elite group of people. They are the people who, truly, have enough money to do whatever they please. The group is titled "The Superrich." To be part of the superrich group, one needs a yearly income of 10 million dollars and 100 million dollars in assets. Being superrich does not mean you are a billionaire. Of the 5000 superrich Americans, only 267 are billionaires. As for the rest of the world, 10,000 people are superrich and 450 are billionaires.

Computer software mogul Bill Gates is probably the most well known member of the superrich class. His net worth topped off at nearly 100 billion dollars. How much is 100 billion dollars? To put it in perspective, DeSouza says "If Bill's entire fortune were made...

... middle of paper ...

...llion. The combined net worth of the five richest Americans surpasses that value.

As the old saying goes, money is power. As the statistics show, some people have an insane amount of money, yet their fellow countrymen have close to nothing. In a struggling economy, unfair distribution of wealth can create real problems and unimaginable hardships for some people. For example, millions of people pay $2 for a bottle of designer water, while millions more live on less than $2 a day. If this is to one day change, wealthy people must adopt a much more magnanimous conviction towards their money.

Works Cited

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999.

Silver, Lee. Remaking Eden. New York: Avon, 1998.

DeSouza, Dinesh. The Virtue of Prosperity. New York: The Free Press, 2000.

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