Re:Jeff Bezos Surpasses Bill Gates as World's Richest Person
by kbenson on Thursday July 27, 2017 @02:18PM
(#14867969)
> say that an average young person working in retail might have $5K in savings
Doubtful. Even if you assume a minimum wage of $10, which is well above the Federal minimum (but slightly below some state minimums), that's 500 hours of wages. That's almost three months of 40 hours work weeks where you put every penny into savings. Before taxes. Before living expenses. The vast majority of Americans have far less than $5k in their savings account.[1]
1: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/03/how-much-americans-at-every-a...
Re:Jeff Bezos Surpasses Bill Gates as World's Richest Person
by pilom on Thursday July 27, 2017 @03:41PM
(#14868699)
How much you keep in your bank savings account has very low correlation with savings/net worth. Extremely low net worth people generally keep liquid assets in cash because then they don't need to pay crazy fees to banks. High net who do use savings accounts generally keep very little of their liquid assets in one.
Re:Jeff Bezos Surpasses Bill Gates as World's Richest Person
by aoeusnth1 on Thursday July 27, 2017 @02:32PM
(#14868080)
Measuring the size of savings accounts != measuring the size of savings. Brokerage accounts exist. 401k plans exist. Hell, even paying into a mortgage is a form of savings.
Re:Jeff Bezos Surpasses Bill Gates as World's Richest Person
by kbenson on Thursday July 27, 2017 @03:33PM
(#14868607)
Sure... but are you just making a distinction, or are you arguing that the average young person working in retail has any of those things? I agree with the distinction, I'm just not sure it makes any difference in this case.
Re:Jeff Bezos Surpasses Bill Gates as World's Richest Person
by MisterBastahrd on Thursday July 27, 2017 @04:40PM
(#14869247)
The average young person working in retail has $0 in savings and ~$200 in his checking account on a good week.
Say you have $1M. Then Donald Trump might have 200 times more than you, or $200 M (they were saying he's not really a billionaire). But Bill Gates has 200 times more than him -- $40 B. (And apparently now Bill Gates has $90 B).
And I guess you could extend it further say that an average young person working in retail might have $5K in savings, which is 200x less than the Silicon Valley employee.
So people think that there are three classes: poor, middle, class, rich (Donald Trump). But there is actually another full class above him: the super-rich like Bill Gates.