THE SUPER RICH ARE LOSERS TOO; BRITISH WEALTHY SUFFER ALONG WITH THE REST OF US TOO

The super wealthy of the world suffer too when the markets decline along with those smaller investors who may have just a few million, I mean a few thousand parked away for the future or for a comfortable retirement. (Leona Helmsley's dog, "Trouble", shown above is the recipient of her will's largess.)

There is slight (ok a big) difference on how bad it can be for each group.

The life style of a mogul who lost $1 billion in value from his $2 billion fortune will not really change the way the life style of someone who lost $100,000 of this $200,000 nest egg will change.

So everything is relative. A 50% loss of the value of the mogul's portfolio or assets will have absolutely no bearing on his life style, while the same percentage loss will have a major effect on the future of a "regular" retiree.

Of course in the case of the super rich, Leona Helmsley's passing meant the vast improvement in the life styles of "pet" charities and her dog, "Trouble" to whom she left over $100 million; that decision was recently over-ruled however, and actual blood relatives and other charities will now benefit from her will as well.

A recent poll published in the AARP magazine showed that 8% of people over 50 lost 50% or more, of their retirement savings in the past 12 months; 28% lost between 30%-50%, 23% lost between 20%-30% and 17% lost between 10%-20% of their retirement savings.

Those are very big numbers for this group since they do not have a lot of time to start saving especially of they are close to retirement age right now.

So, as we have suggested previously, our model suggested portfolio of putting all your money and savings into a mattress, pretty much beat out all investment gurus last year.

The only investment method that beat our model investment portfolio was keeping your money in CD's, since that would have provided at least a small increase equal to the interest rate obtained on the deposits. So much for investment advisers.