Comments on: US citizens face net worth problem – or do they?

By: Mr Tickle

Mr Tickle — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:45:35 +0000

@ermine – I haven’t got the figures to hand, but US household assets definitely dwarf liabilities.

By: ermine

ermine — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:13:11 +0000

> more than the average amount of consumer debt a feckless neighbour down the road is going to be able to accrue.

I don’t know, with a bit of determination you can borrow more than that. Heck, when I moved 10 years ago I had over £40k on an interest-free credit card as a bridging loan, and this is scary – 102 big ones…

Even if I counted my paid off house as part of my net worth I’d struggle to hit 5x income. I really am amazed, there must be a lot of “Millionaire Next Door”s in the States. Wonder what that looks like for the UK.

By: Mr Tickle

Mr Tickle — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:09:50 +0000

@Ermine – I’ll try and dig deeper back into the figures later today. But I don’t find the contention on the face of it surprising; it’s one of the reasons I’m forever telling US bloggers their country isn’t bankrupt. People with assets dwarf the negative holdings of those without.

This isn’t really surprising – the modest property I rent in London is worth £450,000, for instance, which is even today 10x more than the average amount of consumer debt a feckless neighbour down the road is going to be able to accrue.

By: ermine

ermine — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:10:38 +0000

Does this include housing but exclude mortgage? For the vast majority of my working life my net worth has been negative, it is only in the last 1/3 that I come up for air.

I know America is richer than the UK, and the wealth distribution is even less equal, but even so I find this that people’s net worth is 5x income hard to believe unless outliers like Bill Gates and Warren Buffets are cancelling out millions of Joe Sixpacks underwater on their mortgages…