Poor little rich girl
ANOTHER GORGEOUS day in L.A. -- a great day to be a millionaire, isn’t it? And aren’t we all? Millionaires, I mean. Gorgeous too, it goes without saying.
Surely you saw the Wall Street Journal story; all of us millionaires read the Wall Street Journal. Some research outfit called TNS says Los Angeles County has more millionaire households than anywhere else. We make up 3% of the nation’s millionaires.
Suck it up, third-place Orange County. And yo, New York -- can you see my million-dollar smile from waaay out of the running?
I felt richer just reading that story.
Naturally, I didn’t mention it to my millionaire neighbors. We millionaires play it low-key. We don’t act all nouveau and flashy. I just nodded to my neighbor as we both carried our empty yogurt pots and shredded T-bill statements out to the curbside recycling bins. Being a millionaire carries great responsibility. Recycling, for one. I’m thinking of giving up the paper-or-plastic dilemma altogether and buying one of those $495 Stella McCartney organic cotton grocery totes to prove my green cred.
It’s true, I could spend my days lounging by the cool, sparkling waters of my birdbath, but it’s important to set an example and to exhibit a work ethic even when one doesn’t need the work. On my way to the office, I heard a radio ad telling me that if I want to become a millionaire, I can attend a seminar that will.... I switched it off. Been there. Doing that.
At the end of the freeway ramp, I spotted a man collecting cans and bottles. He was wearing a T-shirt, white on blue, “Knowledge is power.” That may be, but it ain’t money, is it? And frankly, as a money-making strategy for the first million, collecting cans lacks a certain ... focus.
At the office, I spent $2.80 on a fluffy custom coffee. I could splash out for the $3.50 size but, as I said, showing off is unwise. Large-coffee spending habits, buying big designer labels, driving a shiny new German car, a loaded VW bug -- we may as well just send out the RSVP to kidnappers.
As I drank my modest joe, I found this among my e-mails: “Acclaimed Author, Tamara Monosoff, Spills the Secrets of Millionaire Moms.”
Is it just me, or are there too many people getting rich by telling other people how to get rich? Isn’t it already getting crowded in our L.A. millionaires’ club?
I had my people.... Scratch that, I don’t have people; honest, it’s too Paris Hilton. I called someone in the know about these things: USC’s Dowell Myers, professor of urban planning and demography.
The prof says the reason that Los Angeles is the big-box Costco of millionaires is because of sheer population volume and because both incomes and the cost of living are higher here. L.A. is so big that Jack Kyser, the numbers chieftain at the L.A. Economic Development Corp., ranks it as the 17th most prosperous nation in the world -- right behind the Netherlands and way ahead of Belgium, Switzerland and Taiwan. So it’s natural we’d have more of everything, including rich people and poor ones.
As it turns out, we have a lot more poor than rich here; we’re the Costco and the Wal-Mart of the poor and undereducated. This news shocked me, although I guess it shouldn’t. Someone has to be poor, just as a matter of comparison for us millionaires.
Coincidentally, Myers had just been consulting with people in Orange County about their problem: Foundations haven’t been ponying up much charity money because that show “The O.C.” -- now canceled -- convinced everyone that Orange County is all Newport Beach and no Santa Ana.
“The same with L.A. That’s the pop image worldwide. They don’t know about the interior that [writer] Mike Davis calls ‘the empty quarter.’ It’s typical; people can’t comprehend diversity. They always pigeonhole things. They have to have some handle, and the handle that’s visible to them is palm trees and convertibles and Hollywood.” And millionaires like me, I say helpfully.
“Yeah, well ... “ he pauses. I know that pause. It a delicate thing, non-rich-people talking to those of us who have made it.
Myers points out to me that it isn’t clear whether the TNS survey included pensions too, and “a lot of people have got a million stashed in retirement accounts, but a million bucks doesn’t go very far. It’ s nothing to sniff at, but the return on a million bucks is like $60,000 at best. That’s basically middle income.” To be truly rich, he figures, takes, oh, $200 million.
I’m stunned. I have a job and a car and a house in L.A. County. How can I be anything but loaded? And then he delivers this punch: The survey didn’t take my house’s value into account.
Oh my God. I can’t count my house -- my treasure chest, my bank, my geriatric ATM? Does this mean I’m not a millionaire? I’m poor? I’m poor! I live in paradise, all right -- a fool’s paradise.
Where’s that man collecting cans? I’ve got news for him. Unless his friends call him Pepsi, those cans don’t have his name on ‘em. Move over, guy. I’m working on my first million -- again.
