How many of you have met someone who has a taxable (that's after deductions) income of over $250,000?

At one little pub session some years back, one of our friends was celebrating the reversal of a state law limiting punitive damages in civil liability cases, and bought a "round for the house." The reversal made "him" (his estimate of the effect for his firm of some 40 attys on the case) $40,000,000 in one swell foop. It is a certainty that ALL of the 90 or so people there knew him and considered him something of a friend. (I was, I think, the only one there that night that bought him one, but it's a hard habit to break.)

About a year later, Forbes Magazine ran an article on "highest paid lawyers" and ranked him no 3, as I recall, so his income was pretty consistent over a significant period. They said he made $9,000,000 that year, but he commented "they found about a third of it."

Four or five "insurance peddlers" claimed "Million a Year" sales, and best estimate is that their commissions were easily over the $250,000 for each of those years. At least one, a "family friend of my then mother-in-law, claimed ten years straight.

One self-described "worthless ol' fart" who worked for my dad for about 10 years, had "a little farm land" that netted about $300,000 per year, but he worked for $3.50/hr "because he liked having something to do." He "retired" at about age 97 (and still hittin' on the gal who ran the liquor store across the street from the cheap hotel where he lived).

Toss in a fistful of "corporate executives" and other assorted unclassifiables, and you come up with quite a few that lots of people knew, even if they didn't have any idea how much they raked in.

YOU likely have known more of them than you think you did. The ones worth knowing don't necessarily stand out in a crowd, most of the time.

John