TOP DRAWER SATIRE

 

Millionaires Lament Lack of Respect
by
HL Carpenter

 

A million dollars just doesn’t earn the respect it used to. If you don’t believe it, ask anyone with a portfolio balance in the seven-figure range.

“Only the fiscally challenged think in terms of millions these days,” says Terrance ‘Tenspot’ Gottbucks. “The awe is gone. Billions, even trillions, are the new paradigm.”

According to the Millionaire Confidence Survey released yesterday by the American Society of One Armed Economists, people with two-comma net worth believe their ‘coolness quotient’ has dropped sharply. “We’re a big fat zero short of a billion,” wrote one respondent. The eagerly anticipated survey polls 915,367 millionaires across the U.S. in an effort to gauge their level of optimism about their status.

Adam Marx, spokesperson for the Society, explains why the survey is considered an important economic indicator. “If millionaires are happy, everybody’s happy. It’s the tickle-down theory of economics.”

While past surveys have hinted at a waning confidence within the ranks of millionaires, responses to the most recent poll indicate a major turning point came during the presidential speech of September 7, 2003. Hearing President Bush casually request $87 billion dollars from Congress – without even a stutter – left many millionaires feeling they were no longer a part of the ‘gilded age’.

The survey also revealed that, due to rising gas prices and declining mansion values, 61.452 percent of the millionaires surveyed are considering cutting back on bottled water, designer toilet paper and other vital necessities.

Despite these frugal intentions, the dark cloud cast by the survey may have a silver lining for some.

“We expect a surge in requests for basic budgeting advice from disenfranchised millionaires striving for three-comma respectability,” says Icahnn Count, spokesperson for the Institution of Certifiable Public Accountants.

 

Originally published September 2003.