[jbr]

There's a lot of causal ambiguity in this article, particularly due to the fact that no small percent of millionaires likely come into wealth by way of inheritance or marriage. For example, the author cites the presence of 350k millionaire teachers as contradicting the statement "you won't get rich as a teacher." "get rich" implies causality, but "are rich" (the cited fact) does not.

But yeah, conspicuous consumption is tacky.

[scottkrager]

Having read a few of the books discussed in the article, the author makes a point of showing how actually a small % of millionaires came into their wealth from an inheritance. He states that 80% are first-generation affluant.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/stanley-millionaire.htm...