The Number Of MIllionaires Is Growing In The U.S.

In what some people see as a positive development in the economy the number of millionaires in the U.S. is growing over the last several years. A millionaire is defined as a person or family who have assets in excess of 1 million dollars after you exclude the value of their primary residence. In other words, if they have more than 1 million dollars in assets after you subtract the value of their primary residence or home. In 2009 the number rose to 7.8 million. This was up from 6.7 million in 2008. The all time high in the U.S. was 9.2 million in 2007. The number of people who are considered "ultra rich" has risen too. The ultra rich are defined as individuals or families who have a net worth of over 5 million dollars after excluding the value of their primary residence. That number rose to 980,000 in 2009. This is up from 840,000 in 2008. Usually rich people are a little older as well. The average age of an individual with assets of over 1 million dollars in the U.S. is 62 years old. The Average age of the "ultra rich" is 67.

Your TV Will Soon Be 3-D

Do you remember when the Movie "Avatar" came out? It was in 3-D and it made almost 3 billion dollars at the box office (2.8 billion more precisely) and it spawned about a thousand other movies that came right after it that had the 3-D feature and pretty much stunk? Well the same type of revolution is getting set to occur with television. The 3-D tv is here already. It is expected that by the end of 2010 there will be over 3.2 million 3-D tv sets that will have been sold in the USA. By 2014 the projection is that over 90 million will be sold that year. The price of the Tv's themselves will not be so much more than an ordinary 2-D HDTV set either. Some 3-D tv sets can even be found now priced at under $1000 for a 50 inch set. The problem right now however is this. There Ain't a whole lot of good stuff to watch on tv in 3-D yet. A lot of shows on tv are reality shows. Who needs 3-D for that? Comedy shows, a lot of channels with talk shows, a lot of channels with old tv shows from the past like "The Brady Bunch" or "Gilligan's Island." This kind of content does not call for a 3-D set. It is however fantastic for sports like the Superbowl or the World Series but these events are only once a year and unless your a real sports fanatic it does not have that much of an appeal.
Another big problem with 3-D tv is that you have to buy a lot of stuff to go with your 3-D tv in order to get it to work right. Of course there are the 3-D glasses. They will run about $150 a pair. If you have a lot of people in your family that can add up quick. You might have to get a new 3-D Blu Ray player if you want to watch movies in 3-D, which of course you will want to do because you just bought a 3-D tv, thats about another $250 or so. Some of these 3-D glasses will only work with certain 3-D tv's too so there will be that to worry about. They are only now introducing the very first sets of 3-D glasses that are universal so maybe that wont be as much of a problem as originally feared. 3-D is going to be a brave new world that will require the consumer to make brave new choices. The best advice here perhaps is to proceed with caution as you go and to wait for the 3-D revolution to shake out a little more and develop before you join in.