Biotech Values

[microcapfun]

O/T >>But this is not the point that PGS was making in #msg-33757407; rather, his point was that having 5% of the populace owning net assets of $1M+ was “unsustainable.”<<

Just a minor late comment on this thread. For someone toward the beginning of their career, sure - $1M in non-real estate equity is quite a bit to contemplate. But for someone near the end of a reasonably successful career (in the financial sense), I would submit that it isn't that much at all.

One way to see that is to consider saving a reasonable amount (say 10%/year after-taxes) of an upper middle class salary by putting it into the stock market every year of employment for ~45 years, and simply assume that over that time the stock market exhibits something close to a 10% CAGR.

Do the math. You'll see that will generate a lot of millionaires - and multimillionaires.* What's not to sustain?

Or you can work backwards. A household with $1M in savings as they enter retirement will probably need to live on ~$30-50K/year during their retirement if they don't want to run out of money. That's not particularly impressive.

So I guess my point is that it isn't that hard to put away $1M by the time of retirement if you have a decent salary and take investing seriously -- and if you don't do that, you might not have a very comfortable retirement ...

micro

* It is amusing to note that only $13,800 growing at 10%/year, exceeds $1M after 45 years, thanks to the 'miracle' of compound interest.