Poorest Millionaires in the world

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Well, okay, this is probably happening in a few cities around the world, but it's just that since I'm Here I can relate to it here.

Pretty well anyone who owns a house here is a "Millionaire," now (in terms of net assets), but Most of them are still working class poor & getting poorer - or worse. What a bizarre phenomenon to watch unfold. I find the whole thing rather fascinating.

People are getting poorer because their jobs don't pay any more, but property taxes & various taxes of all kinds keep rising. In general, Vancouver is a very strange economic black hole devoid of corporate head offices and high salaries. We have the lowest corporate head office job per capita rate on the continent (iirc), and the highest gasoline prices in North America, the highest costs of living in Canada & the 50th highest incomes in the country. In general, incomes haven't really risen here in over 40 years, and it's only now that everything is insanely expensive and unaffordable that wages are beginning to creep up a little bit & low paid jobs are going unfilled - to the extent that some businesses are closing down, or closing 1 or 2 days a week because they can't find anyone to do the jobs at the rates they're able to afford to pay them.

Basically, the most common way for people to have any money is to cash out and skip town for a cheaper locale.. and many have opted to do so, but to what end? Leave this place a ghost town full of Chinese piggy banks that no one lives in? Weeiiiird. And those that stay simply keep working more and more and dialling back their quality of life & expectations of things like disposable income, savings, vacations, retirement plans etc. Ok, ok, only certain neighbourhoods are unoccupied to ghost-town status, but there are empty houses all across the region. There's still more than 2M people here & more coming.. but the ones who come are either filthy rich Or have much lower expectations for money/space for themselves and their families than has been the norm here in the past.

Poorest Millionaires here gotta be senior citizens. Hands down. Some people have Zero compassion for real estate rich seniors, but not me. I think it's devastating that so many have no choice but to sell and move from the homes they've been in for 30-50+ years. Others think they need to shut up, cash in, and move on. These people never planned for their few hundred thousand dollar property to rapidly appreciate to $5M in their golden years & then have such a massive property tax bill that they can't afford food & medicine. Quite literally. There are old people on pensions/gov't pensions etc living in the homes they've been in for decades and surviving on cat food or some other super cheap food because they're house rich and cash poor. Sad situation.

I suppose it's a silver lining that they at least have the option to cash in and downsize/move vs. the seniors around the Province who never managed to buy their own home. Seniors renting have it even worse - especially if they never accumulated any wealth and survive on basic pensions. Rents have increased so sky high that it's impossible for them (or people on welfare, and many on disability) to have their own place anymore. They're getting roommates. Sometimes other seniors, sometimes college students in similar low cash flow situations. But those are the ones who can adapt to changes and make the most of a difficult situation. There are others who just can't handle the pressure anymore and are opting for suicide instead. :/ This housing crisis is literally killing people.

Strange times. Strange times, indeed.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Not exactly home owners, but His story caught my ey because this family says it was easier and more affordable to make a go of life in Manhattan than even in the VERY distant (100-120km away from downtown) suburbs of Metro Vancouver.

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/ ... y-too-hard

Crazy. Never would have imagined that.

They’re leaving for Calgary, the city with the highest incomes in Canada.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.