MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2006
Tuesday Edition: More Sunshine Week Resources
At
Poynter, I often teach a session on how to find useful stuff on the
Internet to enrich your stories. In the spirit of
Sunshine Week, during
which journalists are highliting the ways that public records are the
foundation of the work we do, I added some sites to a list compiled by
Gannett News Service to help you use public records in your
reporting:
- Know your representative. Vote-smart.org includes voting records, speeches and quotes, education and family background and voting ratings from special-interest groups.
- If campaign money is the mother's milk of politics, then this site is the barn in which the secrets are stored: OpenSecrets.org. You
can search for donors and recipients, check donations by
special-interest topic, ZIP code and more. You can also see
personal financial
disclosure forms from every member of Congress, including property and
income that they declare. If you want to see the raw data, go to the
Federal Election Commission Web site. There, you can see PDF files of actual
donors' listings, including donation amounts.
- If you want to know what your national legislators are saying, go to GovTrack.us, and you can sign up for a notification any time they vote or speak on the floor.
More Billionaires
The new Forbes list of billionaires and rich people finds that there was a fairly large growth in billionaires recently. In fact, 20 years ago, Forbes listed 140 billionaires worldwide. This time, the number was 793.
The story says:
The U.S.
is home to 44 new billionaires and commands nearly half of the fortunes
on the roster. Bill Gates retains his title as the world's richest
person for the twelfth straight year, proving that while it's getting
easier to make a billion, the same can't be said for making $50
billion.
In second place is his good friend and bridge partner Warren Buffett. The Sage of Omaha is
worth $42 billion this year, $2 billion less than last.
Other notables in the
Top 20 include number seven, Bernard Arnault, the pope of fashion who runs
LVMH and oversees its high-end brands including Louis Vuittton and Dom
Perignon; and Roman Abramovich, the 39-year-old Russian oil baron who
liquidated his biggest asset last year for $13 billion.
Seventy-eight women
make the list, 10 more than last year, though only six are self-made,
including the Queen of All Media, Oprah Winfrey, Harry Potter author
J.K. Rowling and eBay's Meg Whitman.
Forbes has produced a whole Web package on this story, with interactive maps of billionaires' hometowns, and a directory of billionaires by state and region.
Millions of Millionaires
Do people still consider millionaires to be mega-rich? A couple of years ago, one study said more than 2 million Americans are millionaires now -- it amounts to one out of every 125 people in this country. The Lincoln Financial Group has estimated that by 2013, the number of millionaires in America will triple due to inheritances from World War II-generation parents.
You can click here to see the IRS's estimate
[XLS file] of how many millionaires live in your state. (Remember, as you read this
chart, that population numbers are in thousands -- so add three "0s" --
and the money figures are expressed in millions. In other words, just
for example, Alabama has 35,000 millionaires, worth a total of $88,579,000,000.) The IRS also breaks down the data by sex and age.
The IRS's Winter 2003 Statistics of Income bulletin said:
California remains the state with the largest number of millionaires, while Connecticut was the state with the greatest per capita concentration of millionaires.
Other studies of millionaires in America
say that you may not know who is a millionaire by what they spend. They
usually do not drive a new car, wear an expensive watch or wear
expensive suits.
The book "The Millionaire Next Door"
included this passage about what a millionaire might say in describing
himself/herself to you. In many ways, the list could hold the secrets to
becoming rich:
- I am a fifty-seven-year-old male, married with three children.
About 70 percent of us earn 80 percent or more of our household's
income.
- About one in five of us is retired. About two-thirds of us who are
working are self-employed. Interestingly, self-employed people make up
less than 20 percent of the workers in America
but account for two-thirds of the millionaires. Also, three out of four
of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs.
Most of the others are self-employed professionals, such as doctors and
accountants.
- Many of the types of businesses we are in could be classified as
dullnormal. We are welding contractors, auctioneers, rice farmers,
owners of mobile-home parks, pest controllers, coin and stamp dealers,
and paving contractors.
- About half of our wives do not work outside the home. The number-one occupation for those wives who do work is teacher.
- Our household's total annual realized (taxable) income is $131,000
(median, or 50th percentile), while our average income is $247,000.
Note that those of us who have incomes in the $500,000 to $999,999
category (8 percent) and the $1 million or more category (5 percent)
skew the average upward.
- We have an average household net worth of $3.7 million. Of course,
some of our cohorts have accumulated much more. Nearly 6 percent have a
net worth of over $10 million. Again, these people skew our average
upward. The typical (median, or 50th percentile) millionaire household
has a net worth of $1.6 million.
- On average, our total annual realized income is less than 7
percent of our wealth. In other words, we live on less than 7 percent
of our wealth.
- Most of us (97 percent) are homeowners. We live in homes currently
valued at an average of $320,000. About half of us have occupied the
same home for more than twenty years. Thus, we have enjoyed significant
increases in the value of our homes.
- Most of us have never felt at a disadvantage because we did not
receive any inheritance. About 80 percent of us are first-generation
affluent.
- We live well below our means. We wear inexpensive suits and drive
American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year
automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles.
- Most of our wives are planners and meticulous budgeters. In fact,
only 18 percent of us disagreed with the statement "Charity begins at
home." Most of us will tell you that our wives are a lot more
conservative with money than we are.
- We have a "go-to-hell fund." In other words, we have accumulated
enough wealth to live without working for ten or more years. Thus,
those of us with a net worth of $1.6 million could live comfortably for
more than twelve years. Actually, we could live longer than that, since
we save at least 15 percent of our earned income.
- We have more than six and one-half times the level of wealth of
our nonmillionaire neighbors, but, in our neighborhood, these
nonmillionaires outnumber us better than three to one. Could it be that
they have chosen to trade wealth for acquiring high-status material
possessions?
- As a group, we are fairly well educated. Only about one in five
are not college graduates. Many of us hold advanced degrees. Eighteen
percent have master's degrees, 8 percent law degrees, 6 percent medical
degrees, and 6 percent Ph.D.s.
- Only 17 percent of us or our spouses ever attended a private
elementary or private high school. But 55 percent of our children are
currently attending or have attended private schools.
- As a group, we believe that education is extremely important for
ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. We spend heavily for
the educations of our offspring.
- About two-thirds of us work between forty-five and fifty-five hours per week.
- We are fastidious investors. On average, we invest nearly 20
percent of our household realized income each year. Most of us invest
at least 15 percent. Seventy-nine percent of us have at least one
account with a brokerage company. But we make our own investment
decisions.
- We hold nearly 20 percent of our household's wealth in transaction
securities such as publicly traded stocks and mutual funds. But we
rarely sell our equity investments. We hold even more in our pension
plans. On average, 21 percent of our household's wealth is in our
private businesses.
Too Fast, Too Soon
The Bakersfield Californian
newspaper ran an interesting piece on how difficult it is becoming for
kids to make athletic teams. The story includes this passage:
In some parts of town
-- particularly on the west side -- parents say it's nearly impossible
to get on a school's athletic team unless you've had at least a year or
two of private or club training. Keeping their kids out of the
competitive club setting would mean denying them the chance to play for
their high school teams.
School coaches agree
it's hard to make it onto some school teams without the extra training,
but said it's not impossible for talented, hardworking kids to make it.
"At my high school we have kids who don't play club," said Judy Rexroth, varsity volleyball coach at Bakersfield Christian High School
and director of Bakersfield Volleyball Club. "The more practice they
get, the better they develop. Most high schools coaches want the kids
that are developed."
With so much expected, it's not always an easy road to the varsity
team. Parents of young athletes struggle with just how much training is
too much and how to protect their children from the win-at-all-costs
mentality of some coaches and other parents.
And there is this telling passage:
"We have a lot of
soccer parents at this age and younger who honestly think there are
college scouts out there on the soccer field waiting to recruit their
kids," Mary Ann Davies (mother of a 12-year-old athlete) said. "They'll
go to no end to promote their kids. Private coaches, $2,000 summer
soccer camps, the best equipment, $200 soccer balls. At 12 years old,
that's a bit much."
College and
professional scouts are not looking at 12-year-olds. They find players
by watching high school teams, going to club tournaments and from
information garnered from a network of high school-level coaches whose
opinions they trust.
"It's extremely
unusual," [California State University, Bakersfield] women's basketball coach Tim La Kose said of scouting
younger players. "We don't go to the youth camps for the purpose of
recruiting. There are the exceptions. You'll see a (Olympic basketball
gold medalist) Diana Taurasi in the eighth grade and you know she's
going to be something special. But those are few and far between."
The Automatic Bathroom
Have you seen all of
the technology that people are building into the humble bathroom these
days? There are automatic showers that you can turn on from anywhere in
the house, faucets that have pre-set temperatures for the water,
preheated toilet seats and sound systems for your shower. Wow. See this story from MSNBC for details.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of
ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web
sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information
comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link
will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but
depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited.
Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.Posted at 5:48:40 PM
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