Free Republic

Twenty-nine of the top 30 areas with the most million-dollar homes are in California or NYC's Tri-State Area. Eight of the ten wealthiest towns are in California and New York State. Forty percent of the nation's billionaires live in California, New York State, and Connecticut. But the Washington, D.C., area dominates the list of highest-earning counties, claiming six of the top ten and 13 of the top 30. Why?

A gunman carjacked an undercover police officer Thursday afternoon on the Near North Side embarking on nearly two-mile crime spree that left two people shot in the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood. The string of violence began around 5:30 p.m. in the 600 block of West Chicago Avenue, where a man hijacked an on-duty undercover officer’s vehicle, according to Deputy Police Chief Kevin Ryan. The officer was unharmed. The man drove off and was spotted, again, near Oak and Rush streets. There, he shot the driver of a black Nissan Altima in the arm after he attempted to steal his car,...

Beau Biden has defended the judge who decided to let an heir to the du Pont family agree to a plea deal after being charged with sexually abusing his young daughter. Biden, the Vice President's son who is in his second term as Delaware Attorney General, wrote a letter supporting Superior Court Judge Jan Jurden and her decision to allow Robert H. Richards IV to admit to fourth degree rape and register as a sex offender but not serve any time. Her decision prompted outrage after she supported the move by writing that the heir, who just turned 48 yesterday,...

We are, I fear, slowly moving from “the affluent society” toward a “spoils society.” In 1958, Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith published his bestseller, “The Affluent Society,” which profoundly influenced national thinking for decades. To the Great Depression’s survivors, post-World War II prosperity dazzled. Suburbia offered a quiet alternative to crowded and noisy cities. New technologies impressed — television, frozen foods, automatic washers and dryers. Never, it seemed, had so much been enjoyed by so many.

In his “Economic Scene” column in the New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, “The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate.” Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, “transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent,” not the less fortunate. But for Mr. Porter, as for the Left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely “less affluent,” they are “less fortunate.” Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the “affluent”...

It turns out $200,000 is the magic number. That's when you're considered affluent in America. And what you make in your 20s is a huge predictor of whether you'll ever get there. According to advertising agency Digitas, it's much more likely you'll hit $200K if you make at least $100K before age 35. That puts you into the emerging wealth category; anyone older and in that income bracket is considered aspiring. Digitas pulled this research together after the economic downturn, after realizing that the core luxury consumers were the ones who made more money earlier. Those in the aspiring category...

- In Sweden that is. All the same, if various experts are right, the Nordic countries are not only the richest part of the world, but also global leaders in the domain of QUALITY of life. Therefore, living in this part of Stockholm is probably as good as life gets, or? The article: "The Stockholm suburb of Danderyd is the best municipality in which to live, according to a new ranking by the magazine Fokus. Lund and nearby Lomma in southern Sweden follow closely behind. Ljusnarsberg municipality in the Bergslagen region of central Sweden ended up in last place. The...

With its attacks on advertising, opulence and environmental filth, John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society, published 50 years ago, anticipated today’s small-minded growth scepticism. It has become so much part of conventional wisdom that affluence is a problem that it is hard to imagine that attitudes were ever different. The media is full of stories about problems that allegedly owe much to our affluent lifestyles, including environmental degradation, social inequalities and even mental illness. Yet there was once a time when popular prosperity was seen as overwhelmingly positive. When John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society was first published 50 years...

New Jersey has the most millionaire households in the country, according to a marketing company's fifth annual ranking. The Garden State moved up from No. 2 in 2005 and 2006 to No. 1 last year on the index, compiled by Phoenix Affluent Marketing Service, which does research for companies that sell luxury products, investments and the like to the wealthy. According to the service, in 2007, 7.12 percent of New Jersey's 3.2 million households had a total of $1 million or more liquid or investable assets. That includes items such as savings, stocks and bonds, precious metals, the cash value...

The colonisation by the middle classes of the best state schools has led to a dramatic widening of the gap in educational performance between rich and poor children in the past year, new figures indicate. [Snip] The figures underscore the massive influence of parental background on school success.

Affluence Capitalism can make a society rich and keep it free. Don't ask it to make you happy as well HAVING grown at an annual rate of 3.2% per head since 2000, the world economy is over half way towards notching up its best decade ever. If it keeps going at this clip, it will beat both the supposedly idyllic 1950s and the 1960s. Market capitalism, the engine that runs most of the world economy, seems to be doing its job well. But is it? Once upon a time, that job was generally agreed to be to make people better...

NEW YORK, March 18th (Reuters) - Conspicuous consumption is back, but luxury goods makers could find themselves with a glut of designer purses and deluxe mobile phones if Americans lose their urge to splurge. More companies are rolling out high-end goods -- a market that includes everything from $69 margaritas at Chicago's swanky Nine Steakhouse to $5,500 Viking refrigerators for the well-appointed home kitchen to $30,000 platinum-encased cell phones from Nokia unit Vertu. One of the most coveted items is DaimlerChrysler's Products like these are debuting as affluence is becoming more widespread, thanks in part to baby boomers who...