If you became an owner of 1KG of gold. How rich does that make you compared to the rest of the world?
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Depends if you can sell it
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$90k is absolutely life changing for most people. That's a down payment on a house plus moving costs and upgrading appliances and furniture. That's the difference between poverty and living comfortably. If that's not life changing for you, then I'm not sure you're familiar with the struggle, in which case I strangely both pity you and envy you.
Sure you're not gonna buy a mansion with $90k, but you could go from renting a shithole apartment in a shithole town to owning a home in a decent area with access to better employment to sustain a much higher quality of life. $90k is a ticket to escaping geographical and financial shackles.
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Slow your roll buddy. I didn’t say it’s meaningless to everyone, only that it wouldn’t change my life.
To your example, I already own a house but $93k won’t pay off my mortgage, or let me retire early, or cover my kids’ college costs.
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Ah damnit so I did. The rest of the numbers are true, just not as close to the 1kg’s worth as noted.
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Paying that large of a chunk of a mortgage would absolutely reduce your future interest costs though.
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Prepaying a mortgage is almost always a worse investment than almost anything else because mortgage interest is tax deductible.
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the median net wealth in the US is right around that $193k number, but the average is just over $1M, which is pretty amazing.
I'd say that the median is the average in this case. The mean usually works as a mathematical average, but in this example, it's clearly skewed.
The difference isn't between median and average, but between median and mean.
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Not always, but often, yes. It depends on what your alternative potential uses for the money are.
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Now always but often. You could even say almost always.
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So like straight up several Dudley Do Rights?
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About 90k Euros in Germany. Could almost get me an entry level Porsche Taycan. But that would be a pretty stupid decision as the upkeep and insurance would ruin me. Also with German entry level cars you can be lucky if it has windshield wipers.
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That's huge amounts of money in most parts of the world. Westerners don't realise just how much more their currency is worth.
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Yeah pretty much! They were in full dress with the red coats and boots and the wide brimmed hats and all that. No horses though. There was also a fair bit more security that day than usual with swat team-looking guys around the exits and stuff.
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Isn't mortgage interest deductible only if you itemize your deductions?
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According to the page, that's using an imaginary unit called "international dollars" (which I just learned exists), which is used for comparing countries' economies. It doesn't reflect the real amount in US dollars. In US dollars the median US salary is just under $60,000. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf
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Tell us more about the windshield wipers.
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That's really interesting. I saw the term "international dollar" but glossed right over it.
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Sure, but mortgage interest can easily be enough to make that worth it without any other deductions. With $300K principal and a 5% loan, that’s $15K - about the same as a single taxpayer’s standard deduction and roughly half of a married couple’s standard deduction.
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It was a joke obviously but German cars often start with just the absolute basics, almost forcing you to pay up for extras that should be standard, especially in higher classes.
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1kg of gold would fuck up so many of the world populations people, much like the lottery
