posted
I wouldn't really consider someone to be a millionaire simply because their spouse was a millionaire. (Or even if the two of them have combined net assets of a million)
Maybe if you used households with at least two million.
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posted
Mucus: if you'd prefer, about one in every eighteen households in the US is a millionaire household (not counting the value of primary residences).
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While I agree that the common actual meaning of "millionaire" is indeed "someone who has a million dollars to his or her name," I think the context of its original use here was clearly "person who has so much money that he or she isn't part of the general population."
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posted
But that's the point. A household with a million dollars in assets beyond their primary residence is in almost all cases someone at the very least set to live comfortably for many years. What's more, it was pretty clear the person being responded to about frequency, Lyrhawn, was using millionaires to refer to people with a million dollars -- he even literally mentioned them having a "million dollars". And households with a million dollars other than the primary residence are just not that uncommon in the US. Becoming that comfortable really is obtainable.
In fact, picking the specific comparison he was going with,
quote:There are hundreds of thousands of teachers, and becoming a teacher has a fairly well-plotted path to achievement. Becoming a millionaire is a lot harder.
, there are only about 3.1 million elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States, smaller than the number of millionaires! (I know, one's households and one's individuals, but that's still a big difference). And most of those are not inherited millionaires. Only around 2% of wealth held by millionaires is inherited. So yes, in some senses it is more common to become a millionaire than to become a teacher.
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posted
I think if you take the word "millionaire" and replace it with "billionaire," you'll be closer to Lyrhawn's intent. Like Dr. Evil, he's just an innocent victim of time and inflation.
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posted
Also, there's a difference between commonality and difficulty ("a lot harder"), there may only be ten thousand fans of the 2012 Olympic logo in the US (number totally made up) which would mean that it is more common to be a millionaire than a fan. But it may very well be "harder" for a given person to become a millionaire than for them to become a fan.
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quote:I think if you take the word "millionaire" and replace it with "billionaire," you'll be closer to Lyrhawn's intent. Like Dr. Evil, he's just an innocent victim of time and inflation.
Except I don't think I am. He was pretty specific, and reiterated what he meant in several ways. And a millionaire (when not counting the value of the primary residence) is a wealthy person, which is what we're talking about. They are also a common type of person, which is my point.
Mucus: I grant you that quantity does not match up with ease. However, I think the commonality of millionaires, even subtracting out those who inherited, makes a very good case that becoming such is at least very achievable given drive and sacrifice, if not easy.
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quote:And a millionaire (when not counting the value of the primary residence) is a wealthy person...
Yeah, I think that's the source of the confusion. Your points boil down to "millionaires don't fit into your stereotype." But they don't fit into the stereotype because they aren't sufficiently wealthy. Once you raise the bar, they suddenly do.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: But that's the point. A household with a million dollars in assets beyond their primary residence is in almost all cases someone at the very least set to live comfortably for many years. What's more, it was pretty clear the person being responded to about frequency, Lyrhawn, was using millionaires to refer to people with a million dollars -- he even literally mentioned them having a "million dollars". And households with a million dollars other than the primary residence are just not that uncommon in the US. Becoming that comfortable really is obtainable.
In fact, picking the specific comparison he was going with,
quote:There are hundreds of thousands of teachers, and becoming a teacher has a fairly well-plotted path to achievement. Becoming a millionaire is a lot harder.
, there are only about 3.1 million elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States, smaller than the number of millionaires! (I know, one's households and one's individuals, but that's still a big difference). And most of those are not inherited millionaires. Only around 2% of wealth held by millionaires is inherited. So yes, in some senses it is more common to become a millionaire than to become a teacher.
The silliest part of your equivalence is comparing a job to an economic status. There are only ever going to be so many jobs in teaching. There's no such structural limit to the number of millionaires, or wealthy people in general. So it's silly to say that there are more millionaire's than teachers like it really means anything at all. (ETA: Mucus already touched on this, but I think it's important).
Furthermore, well, Tom has my meaning a little better, but even going off strictly what's been said so far, you're suggesting that 1 in 22 is not an extreme minority, so I'd like to know what is. 1 in 22 people is what, 4.5% of the population? How much less does it have to be to be an extreme minority? I personally do not consider such a small amount of people to be common.
You can turn around and say that there are even fewer teachers, but that's not the point, as I outlined above. There may be fewer teachers, but lots of people don't want to be teachers, and for those that do, getting into the profession has a clearly outlined, relatively easy path. Everyone wants to be a millionaire, yet so few are. Tom was right though, I should be saying at least multi-millionaires, if not billionaires. I was being flippant when I said "a million dollars dropped in their laps." But I still think it works even with what I was saying before. I think part of the issue is the perception of wealth. For someone making the national average, a million dollars seems like vast wealth, but when you're talking split up amongst assets, I don't think it is. Having spare millions cash in hand, however, strikes me as different.
And as another aside, I'm curious, how do the millionaire numbers work when you factor in debt? Are we talking about net worth? My parents make somewhere near the national average in income, but my dad lives in an apartment and my mom has a house with two mortgages on it. Both of them have zero assets. Do these millionaires own their primary and secondary residences outright, or is mortgage and other kinds of debt factored in? Just curious.
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quote:There may be fewer teachers, but lots of people don't want to be teachers, and for those that do, getting into the profession has a clearly outlined, relatively easy path.
Relative to what? It requires a college degree and in most states, passing a proficiency exam in your field (either elementary education or the content area if you are secondary).
Not to throw any more numbers into it, but what percentage of the population has a college degree? And, even if you follow the clearly outlined path, there is no guarantee that you will find a job. I can point you to many, many people with education degrees who cannot find teaching jobs. I was almost one of them - I interviewed for many jobs outside my field when it became clear that a job in education was not likely for me. I got lucky and took over a teaching position after another teacher quit. But, I was lucky - many, many people who want a teaching job cannot get one.
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posted
The term "millionaire" was likely coined in the early 19th century, when it pretty clearly meant something like "rich beyond belief." Millionaire gave way to multimillionaire, then billionaire and now multibillionaire.
The fact that some still use the term to indicate the super-rich shouldn't be controversial.
The first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, was reputed to have a liquid One Billion Dollars, not merely a billion dollars in assets. If all assets are considered, then there have been a lot of farmers for many years that could have been considered millionaires, but with very little cash, couldn't have been considered rich.
In any case, as in any argument, if you define your terms, then your terms are those being used in the argument, not someone else's. Arguing over what someone meant after they clarify their own terms is pretty pointless.
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quote:getting into the profession has a clearly outlined, relatively easy path.
And yet, about half of all newly minted teachers quit the profession within the first 5 years. Getting into the profession may or not be easy, but staying there is very hard.
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quote:getting into the profession has a clearly outlined, relatively easy path.
And yet, about half of all newly minted teachers quit the profession within the first 5 years. Getting into the profession may or not be easy, but staying there is very hard.
Well whether you want the job after you get to it is another matter. That's not really relevant to my point.
Belle -
How willing are you to move across the country to get a teaching job? Recruiters from the south and west regularly come to the big teaching schools around here to recruit and bring people back. There are teaching jobs, it just depends on where you live and what you teach.
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quote: And yet, about half of all newly minted teachers quit the profession within the first 5 years.
We have discussed this in other threads and the main reason teachers leave is because they are not properly prepared in college for the job and are not properly trained/mentored once they start the job. Plus without a reference for how many other people leave their careers within the first 5 years saying that 'half' of teachers do is kinda meaningless. Maybe that average is pretty low as compared to other professions.
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posted
I expect a lot of good teachers will be leaving Ohio and Wisconsin for those better paying, better respecting states.
But there is something you should consider--the pay for a new teacher is dramatically less than the pay for an experienced teacher. Many schools will happily pay to bring in a new teacher for a year or two, because its much less expensive than paying for a teacher who's been around for a few years. Experience costs money. Administrators would rather save the money.
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: I expect a lot of good teachers will be leaving Ohio and Wisconsin for those better paying, better respecting states.
But there is something you should consider--the pay for a new teacher is dramatically less than the pay for an experienced teacher. Many schools will happily pay to bring in a new teacher for a year or two, because its much less expensive than paying for a teacher who's been around for a few years. Experience costs money. Administrator ors would rather save the money.
The powers that be in Wisconsin and Ohio know full well their teachers can't leave. My state pays its teachers pretty well, but no one is hiring. When the economy stinks, its very easy to take advantage of your employees.
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This is not always true. Administrators do not improve their resumes by saving money, they gain great reputations by bring more money into the district, not saving money.
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This is not always true. Administrators do not improve their resumes by saving money, they gain great reputations by bring more money into the district, not saving money.
And, this is not always true, either. As always, it depends on the school's location and situation. It's not easy to generalize in the field of education and administration. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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