From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Sun Dec 13 1998 - 21:26:21 MST
At 02:37 PM 12/13/98 -0500, Michael Lorrey wrote:
>The page he referred to also considered economic mobility to be under that
topic.
>It is true, its easy for a hardworking person who has a couple ounces of
brains to
>play things right and become wealthy. My older brother dropped out of one
of the
>state colleges, and started mowing lawns with one push lawn mower, about
10 years
>ago. Now he has a business worth almost a million, managing the
maintenance for
>around 40 condo/ apartment complexes and doing all sorts of landscaping. He
>expects to retire before age 40. He works 12-16 hour days almost every
day, and
>has 15-20 employees.
Most people don't realize that 60-70% of the millionaires in the US are
"blue collar" workers. What's more, old wealth is fairly rare: 75% of all
current millionaires in the US are self-made. The richest person in my
family is a blue-collar (construction worker, no college) multi-millionaire
who worked hard and started his own construction firm. Although he doesn't
need to, he still works 70-80 hour work weeks out of habit.
What I do find interesting is that most people who become millionaires are
not the "white collar" professionals who make considerably more money than
their blue collar counterparts. I suspect (and I believe studies have
shown) that typical white collar lifestyles are not terribly conducive to
saving the money required to become a millionaire, whereas middle to
lower-middle class workers are habitually frugal and tend to save their
money even when their incomes rise.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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