All cities are not created equal

...but some are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the ability to attract the Wealthy. My apologies to Thomas Jefferson.

At the end of the preceding post, I included the factoid that New York City has more millionaires than any other place on earth. According to the site where I found that bit of information, the top 20 places of concentrated wealth on our planet are:

Rank	City	Millionaires	Billionaires
#1	New York City, USA	345,600	59
#2	Tokyo, Japan	304,900	12
#3	San Francisco, USA	276,400	62
#4	London, England	272,400	38
#5	Singapore	249,800	26
#6	Los Angeles, USA	192,400	34
#7	Chicago, USA	160,100	28
#8	Houston, USA	132,600	25
#9	Beijing, China	131,500	44
#10	Shanghai, China	130,100	42
#11	Sydney, Australia	129,500	16
#12	Hong Kong, China	125,100	28
#13	Frankfurt, Germany	117,400	14
#14	Toronto, Canada	116,100	17
#15	Zurich, Switzerland	105,100	12
#16	Seoul, South Korea	102,100	25
#17	Melbourne, Australia	97,300	12
#18	Dallas, USA	92,300	18
#19	Geneva, Switzerland	90,300	16
#20	Paris, France	88,600	15

In summary, the 20 cities above are home to 3,259,600 millionaires and 543 billionaires. Any way you slice it, the group represents a lot of moolah.

Other websites have put together other lists that mention other cities, so I suppose the jury is still out. In New York City's case, 345,600 millionaires is a formidable number but it is actually only four per cent (4%) of the city's 8,500,000 inhabitants. Still, if that same percentage of millionaires to population had existed in the little Texas town of 1,000 where I grew up, there would have been 40 millionaires among my neighbors.

I have one thing to say about that.

No way, José.

Speaking of millionaires, today's closing factoid is that former Atlanta Braves baseball player Chipper Jones has downsized. Earlier this month he sold his 23,000 sq.ft. house on 38 acres for $11,750,000 and later the same day paid $5,700,000 for a 9,100 sq.ft. house on 10 acres. Even the ultra-wealthy need to tighten their belts occasionally. And since both properties are right here in Cherokee County he is tecnically a neighbor of mine.

Pretty soon we’re talking real money

Some numbers are so large that it is difficult to get one's head around them. For example, the national debt of the United States at present is nearly THIRTY-TWO TRILLION DOLLARS. That's 32 × 10¹², 32 with 12 zeroes after it.

There was a time not too long ago when countries didn't agree on what the words billion, trillion, and quadrillion actually meant. In some countries 10⁹ was called a billion but in other countries it was called a thousand million or a milliard. In some countries 10¹² was called a trillion but in other countries it was called a billion or a million million; in the latter countries 10¹⁸ was called a trillion. This state of affairs could (and often did) lead to misunderstanding in financial matters and topics like national debts.

Are you confused? Eventually agreement was reached on terminology. I remind you of what Republican U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois once said, "A few billion here, a few billion there, pretty soon we're talkng real money."

Just how big is 32 trillion? Instead of money, let's consider time. We all know that there are 60 seconds in a minute. Since there are 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day, each day is made up of 14,400 seconds. A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is about 31.5 years. A trillion seconds is about 31,710 years. Change seconds to dollars, then multiply that last number by 32 and you will begin to understand the enormity of the U.S. national debt.

Here is a mind-boggling equation:

32 × 31,710 = 1,014,720

That's the number of years it would take to eradicate the current U.S. national debt paying it at the rate of one dollar per second. Even at a rate of $1,000 per second, it would still take 1,014.72 years to do it.

Factoid of the day: Henley Global Citizens Report has found that New York City is the wealthiest city in the world in terms of number of millionaires and billionaires. Among its approximately 8,500,000 inhabitants there are 345,600 millionaires and 59 billionaires.

1 down, 3652 to go

Here's a footnote to yesterday's 60th annversary post:

Ellie wore her original engagement ring and wedding ring set for 56 years, from 1963 until 2019. Four years ago we began a weight-loss program that has been wildly successful, resulting in substantial reduction in avoirdupois for both of us. Along the way, more than waistlines became smaller. Ellie could no longer wear her rings because they kept falling off her fingers.

Ellie didn't want to have her rings resized. She put them away in her jewelry box and began wearing her mother's plain gold band instead, which fit perfectly. Still, I didn't want to let our 60th anniversary, our diamond anniversary, slip by without doing the right thing. Hence, she now has her new ring.

Seeing the row of diamonds she exclaimed, "One per decade!" but on closer examination we counted not six stones but seven. "And one to grow on!" she added.

So we have begun workng toward our 70th anniversary. I determined that there are 3,653 days from our 60th anniversary yesterday until our 70th anniversary on May 19, 2033. Do the math: Multiply 365×10 and add 3 more days for the February 29ths in 2024, 2028, and 2032.

Voila! [vwah-LAH] The title of this post practically wrote itself.

Being typically herself, my lovely wife said she would let me be the one who keeps track of our progress. I didn't notice whether she rolled her eyes.

The prospect of reaching our 70th anniversary is really not all that far-fetched. In our small church, there are two couples, both in their nineties, whose marriages have lasted 73 years so far. Maybe there's something in the water around here.

Sixty years and counting

What does one give on a diamond anniversary?

Why, diamonds, of course!

Ellie was both surprised and pleased.

Yes, I guess I'm tooting my own horn.

One gets the chance so seldom.

I do remember something my mother used to say, though.

"Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back."

But I am truly glad that my gift made Ellie happy.

You know you’re old when…

...your youngest child is celebrating her 30th wedding anniversary this month.

...show-biz celebrities and sports figures whose names or faces you know have been dead for years and years.

,,,you do not recognize the names or faces of any of the current crop of wildly popular show-biz celebrities or sports figures.

...your wedding anniversary, which is comng up in four days, will mark 60 years of wedded bliss with the lovely Mrs. RWP (real name: Ellie).

...you are eagerly awaiting the arrival of your first great-grandchild in a couple of months.

..."staying up late" means you didn't go to bed until after 10 p.m.

And my favorite, which is not original with me:

...your back goes out more often than you do.

What are some ways you can tell that you are getting old?

News flash regarding the coronation

Despite what you may think, despite what you may have heard on radio or television, and despite what you may have read in newspapers and magazines, King Charles III either will not be coronated on May 6, 2023, or was not coronated on May 6, 2023. The verb tense that applies in the preceding sentence depends entirely on whether you read it before or after the coronation of King Charles III that occurred on May 6, 2023.

This is not double-talk and I am not insane. Well, I might be insane but that is a topic for another post.

What I'm trying to tell you is that the verb 'coronate' does not exist in the English language. A president is inaugurated at an inauguration, but a king or queen is not coronated at a coronation. A king or queen is crowned at a coronation. The terms 'coronate' and 'coronated' are called back-formations, which are frowned upon by the frowning sort.

It makes sense when you realize (British, realise) that the word 'coronation' was formed from the Latin word 'corona', which means crown.

P.S. -- Tonight's unbelievably astonishing moment on Jeopardy! occurred when no one knew that the actress who received an Emmy for portraying the character Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls was Betty White. Contestant #2 said Rue McClanahan. Contestant #3 said Bea Arthur. Contestant #1, the reigning champ, didn't buzz in at all. This has absolutely nothing to do with the coronation of Charles III, but I did manage to include the word 'reigning'.

T.T.F.N.

In which I am disappointed with some of my fellow Americans

I may never watch Jeopardy! again. I know I'm probably more of an Anglophile than your average American, but I am in shock.

Let me explain.

On yesterday's program, in a category called May, prominent events that occurred in the month of May were featured. In one visual clue, the following photograph was displayed:

while the master of ceremonies intoned,"On May 12, 1937, this man, shown here with his wife and their two daughters, Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth, was crowned King of England."

Easy peasy.

Contestant number 3 buzzed in and said, "Who is George VIII?".

Contestant #2 buzzed in and said, "Who is George VII?".

Contestant number 1, the current champion, didn't buzz in at all. He looked normal enough but had revealed to the host during the preceding day's interview that he had a drag queen alter ego named Whiskey Ginger, so there is that to consider.

As we all should know, England has never had a George VIII, nor has it ever had a George VII.

The correct answer is "Who is George VI?", the man who became king after the abdication of his older brother, Edward VIII, about whom Contestant number 3 may have been thinking. Of course, Edward VIII did not have a wife with two daughters, although he did eventually have a wife with two divorces.

I can't imagine who Contestant number 2 was thinking about unless it was Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910, George VI's grandfather.

I'm pretty sure Contestant number 1 was thinking about how good Whiskey Ginger, his drag queen alter ego, would look in a robe of ermine..

The real queen (non-drag variety) standing next to King George VI is his wife, the former Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, and the two princesses are his younger daughter, Princess Margaret Rose, and his elder daughter, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, who came to the throne in 1952 as Elizabeth II and reigned for 70 years. The coronation of Charles III, her son, will occur this Saturday, May 12, 2023.

I do hope the contestants have heard of him.