The meaning of wealth around the world

[Deleted]

Food for thought from the Wall Street Journal.

The Meaning of Wealth Translated Around the World
by Robert Frank
Monday, May 24, 2010

We like to think the reasons for seeking wealth are universal. Humans, by nature, like to be comfortable, like to have power and like to have the choices and freedoms offered by lots of stuff and money.

Yet it turns out there are some regional variations in the meaning of wealth around the world.

The new Barclay’s Wealth Insights study, released this morning from Barclay’s Wealth and Ledbury Research, finds that the emerging-market rich view wealth very differently from the older-money Europeans and the slightly less nouveaux Americans.

The study surveyed 2,000 people from 20 countries with investible assets of $1.5 million or more. They shared some common themes: a vast majority of rich people from all regions agreed that wealth enables them to buy the best products and that wealth gives them freedom of choice in their life. Most also agreed that wealth is a reward for hard work.

But the differences are more interesting:

Respect
Asians and Latin Americans were more likely (49% and 47%) to say that wealth "allows me to get respect from friends and family." Only 28% of Europeans and 38% of Americans said respect was a byproduct of wealth.

Charity
About three-quarters of respondents in the U.S. and Latin America said wealth enabled them to give to charity. That compares with 57% in Europe and 66% in Asia.

Happiness
About two thirds of Europeans and Americans said wealth made them happy. But it had a greater happiness affect in emerging markets, with 76% of Asians and Latin Americans saying wealth made them happy.

Role Models
Less than half of Americans and Europeans say the wealthy "set an important example to others to be successful." That compares with 71% of Latin Americans and 61% of Asians.

Spending
Wealthy Europeans are far more likely to spend their dough on travel and interior decorating. Latin Americans seem to put the highest spending priority on education, while the U.S. surges above the rest in philanthropy (which the report counts as spending).

We can read several things into the differences. Most obviously, the U.S. has a more formalized and tax-favorable system of philanthropy than the rest of the world. (It is too sweeping to say Americans are the most "generous.")

What is more, the global financial crisis may have tarnished the image of the wealthy -- even among the wealthy. And finally, the longer a country has wealth, the less it craves the attention and respect wealth brings.

[onlymark]

The 'Happiness' statistic goes against the common saying of money not buying happiness, doesn't it?
Maybe I'm too literal but I could never understand why it wouldn't. I know I'm happier with it than without it.

Well, I would be if I had a lot.

[Deleted]

Well, sometimes there is the issue of the provenance of the money -- there is dirty money and clean money. The French being cynical have an expression: "Money has no smell."

I would like to think that money that one earns makes one happy, but there are also a lot of examples of people who gave up all hope of happiness (love, family, etc.) just to earn more and more money.

[onlymark]

And examples of Lottery winners who regret ever having won as their lives have changed for the worse.

[fumobici]

Lotto winners don't seem to fare very well when it comes to happiness. I don't think there's likely to be much correlation between wealth and happiness provided there's a minimum that's reasonable, though I suppose nearly everyone would intuitively think otherwise. Wealthy people and poor people both tend to spend way too much time worrying about money.

I've also noticed that the more fascinated by wealth people are, the duller they seem to be.

[bixaorellana]

I've read the article three times to see if some pattern emerged. It appears to me that the two groups whose answers are the most similar are the Asians and the Latin Americans. Perhaps I'm basing my perception on stereotypes, but the similarity that these two groups share is that they could be called the most family-oriented, in the sense of awareness of and interaction with the extended family. What is odd is that Asians aren't included in the section on spending, where I would assume they'd name education as a high priority, as did the Latin Americans. Spending on education would indicate a setting a premium on something that benefits the family.

I don't know if I agree with the author's implication that the wealth=happiness equation has anything to do with ones having wealth in "emerging markets", since I would cynically assume that most of those included in the survey in Asia and L.America never knew anything other than wealth. Further, his last sentence is open to much debate.

Money may not buy happiness, but it sure helps stave off lots of stuff that causes unhappiness.

[Deleted]

The thing that caught my eye was Europeans being the lowest in the 'charity' department. This strikes me as completely normal because (most) Europeans have an excellent welfare net to take care of the needy in their countries, and also it is the state that intervenes in other countries when necessary through the tax contributions of the citizens. Even though people will send extra money when things like the tsunami in Southeast Asia or the earthquake in Haiti happen, most foreign aid is considered to be the responsibility of the government.

[Deleted]

May 26, 2010 18:12:47 GMT fumobici said:

Lotto winners don't seem to fare very well when it comes to happiness. I don't think there's likely to be much correlation between wealth and happiness provided there's a minimum that's reasonable, though I suppose nearly everyone would intuitively think otherwise. Wealthy people and poor people both tend to spend way too much time worrying about money.

I've also noticed that the more fascinated by wealth people are, the duller they seem to be.

My thoughts exactly.

[lagatta]

Kerouac, there are always pundits complaining about the fact that Canadians give much less per capita than (US) Americans, when the main difference is that health care is publicly funded (there is also better provision for education and what is called social welfare in the broader sense - I don't mean just last-resort aid for the indigent - than in the US, though less than in most of Europe. And that is based on the taxes people already pay.

People here, and particularly in Québec, responded very strongly after the Haiti earthquake, though that is a matter of people here knowing Haitians, who are in all spheres of life here.

I thought this was a thoughtful little article in the WSJ. It has a lot to do with what sociologists and anthropoligists call "strategies". Looking at foreign student bodies hereabouts, it seems obvious that both East and South Asians place a premium on education.

[Deleted]

I wonder if people in financial circles have any concrete idea about money anymore. Everything that happens seems to be above "100 million" now when it isn't billions or trillions. I don't think the human brain can process such concepts. It's not like when we could lock ourselves in our secret room and count our pieces of gold.

[onlymark]

This is a man standing at the side of 1 million Dollars made up of 100 dollar bills -




This is the same man (left side small) standing next to 1 trillion dollars -

SPOILER: Click to show

www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

[Deleted]

But is he happy?

[spindrift]

And does it matter whether he considers himself happy or not?

[Deleted]

To him, I'm sure it does very much. To us, he is abstract, as are those piles of paper next to him, which are not for us.

I showed these pictures at the office today and gave the following challenge: if you were offered the possibility of taking as much as you could carry in your arms -- as long as absolutely nothing falls on the ground -- would you try to take as much as possible to try to be as careful as possible?

[tillystar]

I showed these pictures at the office today and gave the following challenge: if you were offered the possibility of taking as much as you could carry in your arms -- as long as absolutely nothing falls on the ground -- would you try to take as much as possible to try to be as careful as possible?

Well I was watching an interesting programme on personality types last night (based on the “big 5” types) and based on a similar experiment people who are highly extroverted (who are most likely to take risks for reward) but with a high level at neuroticism (which prevents them going too far) would be most likely to successfully carry off the most. They’ll go further than others, but not too far as to lose it all.

I reckon I’d be very conservative, I’d go for carrying get as much as I could with staying certain I wouldn’t drop any.