Population of millionaires increases worldwide, nationally and locally

George Chamberlin reports:

The World Wealth Report from Merrill Lynch is out in its 10th edition and shows that in 2005 there were about 8.7 million individuals with net financial assets of at least $1 million. That represents an increase of 6.5 percent over the previous year. Combined, these people control assets of $33.3 trillion.
"Real economic growth and market capitalization were the two main drivers of wealth creation, making 2005 a year of robust but decelerating growth for some regions following two consecutive years of strong global performance," said Robert McCann, vice chairman of the Merrill Lynch Global Private Client Group.
"Market returns and economic indicators signaled that the creation of wealth was slowing somewhat in many regions of the world -- most notably, North America -- but HNWIs were still able to benefit from pockets of high performance last year," McCann said.

Heh.