FORTUNES FAIL

Hokitika Guardian, 22 February 1933, Page 3

FORTUNES FAIL

FEWER MILLIONAIRES IN U.S.A

ONLY 75 LEFT OUT OF 513. America is no longer 'the land of millionaires. According to official, statistics issued by tlie Treasury Department, 513 taxpayers had incomes of £200,000 and more in 1929 ; t»-day th e re are just 75. And of those 75 only four return incomes of £1,000,000. It may bn taken for granted, says a correspondent of the News of the World, .that Mr Henry Ford and the two Rockefellers are in the distinguished ' .quartette.

By a tragic coincidence, at the very hour these figures were mad** public Air Donald E. Macl.iTtyr e jumped to death from the 21st -storey of a New York hotel. Once ho was a dollar millionaire in Chicago, but lie became involved in the Insull -smash. His Ch'cago interests wer e interlocked to a great extent with those of Insull. Among the 438 millionaires . whose riche,s have gone like chaff before the wind, within the last two years a r e erstwhile pillars of American commerce, industry, and finance. • Economy is the slogan in Newport, Rhode Island,, which is ! the favoured residential area of American millionaires, and household •staffs are-'being cut almost to .skeleton proportions. It wap speculation t,hatmade the “temporary millionaires,”, and it was speculation that destroyed them.

In 1931 speculative,-profits on .stocks, bonds, and real psl atc .yv-ere £60.000,000. ICompai’A thi« wjth in 1929, when everybody went speculation mad, and the tide of disaster was •already beginning to flow. Yet America still has men of .exceeding riches, men like Andrew Richard and James Mellon, whose ioint .fortunes probably approximate £IOO.000,000. Leaving out Mr Henry Ford, whose exact wealth his ever been a jealously guarded secret, the following mav he accepted the ten richest individuals in New York : Mil’ions of £ Mr John Rockefeller, junr. ... 170 ATr George Baker 40 Air Charles iSchwab . ?5 Mr Fidne.y ; Mitchell ... .... 25 Mr Edward Harkness 20 Mr'Vincent Astor ... 17 AHs 'Edward Harriman ........ 16 Mr J. P. Morgan ••• 15 Mr Arthur Curtis Janies ... 14 Air Payne Whitney 14

Total , ... ... ... 358 Comn-vnies have suffered like individuals. Their incomes have bem the lowest since thp years before Ihe war. ansi more than half of the 500.000 hitherto li-abU for income tax made, no profits &t all’in 1931. ... (