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You really have to be a member of the clueless aristocrat club to write for Forbes.

"Two million bucks is the great dividing line between middle-class comfort and worry in America right now. That $2 million is $100,000 in income, if you base it on an aftertax 5%."

Obviously everyone in the middle class is sitting on $2 million in wealth.

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It took me a second to understand what he was saying: $2 million invested at a 5% return after tax means that you get ~$100,000 per year income from the investment. That should be enough to live a middle-class lifestyle without having to work.

I interpreted that to mean that you need $2M+ to not be concerned that a feasible series of negative events could wipe you out. For example, thanks to the idiotic linkage of health insurance and employment, most Americans would be financially destroyed by the combination of an expensive illness and losing their job, the former making the latter much more likely.

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