The Meaning Of Wealth

Following is a very interesting article from the WSJ on what wealth actually means to people from different countries round the world.It’s interesting reading why people might actually want wealth in the first place and what they choose to do once they have it.The most interesting question is ,of course ,why people  choose to do what they choose to do?

Wall Street Journal 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. Read more of this post