The Wealth of the ONE PERCENT (1%)

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. 


The wealth of the top 1% hit a record $44.6 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter, as an end-of-year stock rally lifted their portfolios, according to new data from the Federal Reserve.


The total net worth of the top 1%, defined by the Fed as those with wealth over $11 million, increased by $2 trillion in the fourth quarter. All of the gains came from their stock holdings. The value of corporate equities and mutual fund shares held by the top 1% surged to $19.7 trillion from $17.65 trillion the previous quarter.

While their real estate values went up slightly, the value of their privately held businesses declined, essentially canceling out all other gains outside of stocks.

The quarterly gain marked the latest addition to an unprecedented wealth boom that began in 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic market surge. Since 2020, the wealth of the top 1% has increased by nearly $15 trillion, or 49%. Middle-class Americans have also seen a rising wealth tide, with the middle 50% to 90% of Americans seeing their wealth increase 50%.  READ MORE...

Day After Thanksgiving Concerns

Many of us go shopping the day after Thanksgiving with all the sales and with all the other people who want to take advantage of the sales as well, or many of us decide to make soup with all the leftovers like my Dad used to do and I now do because of his influence I suppose.

But, once Thanksgiving is over, most of us fail to continue to be as  thankful as we were the day before because we have returned to being so busy living life that we do not have time to think about LIFE.

What does it mean to THINK ABOUT LIFE?

• are we talking about the purpose of life?
• are we talking about the meaning of life?
• are we talking about why we were given life?
• are we talking about respecting life?
• are we talking about being grateful for life?

Most of us, but not all of us, have been raised by our parents to want MORE out of life and while MORE can refer to a variety of things, the underlying concept here is GREED...  and, while GREED is necessary for economic growth and prosperity, GREED can be a rabid dog that bites us in the ass when we are least expecting it....  that is to say that we become more concerned with achieving GREED than we are in appreciating the GREED that we have already accumulated.

Our purpose in life is to accumulate more and more and pretend to enjoy what we have, knowing that inside we are never really satisfied with what we have because we constantly want MORE...  and we are internally stressed because we are fearful that we may one day loose what we have acquired.

Is this really living life?

FORTUNATELY, only 1% of the population live like this...  even though the remaining 99% strive to be like the 1% even though they WILL NEVER get there...  consequently, they are mentally and financially forced to learn to enjoy what they have...  IRONY?