The Remote Town Where 13.2% of People are Millionaires
Вставка
- Опубліковано 21 сер 2023
- To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/hai
The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription.
Get a Half as Interesting t-shirt: standard.tv/collections/half-...
Suggest a video: halfasinteresting.com/suggest
Follow Sam from Half as Interesting on Instagram: / sam.from.wendover
Follow Half as Interesting on Twitter: / halfinteresting
Discuss this video on Reddit: / halfasinteresting
Video written by Amy Muller
Check out our other channels: / wendoverproductions
/ jetlagthegame
Oddly enough, there’s also an old beige RV and a chemistry teacher with cancer…
Shh, you were supposed to say that
And I am their lawyer
say his goddamn name
@@maruftimhe’s geisenberh
@@feddlebag you're goddamn wrong
My grandfather was one of those young scientists that moved to Los Alamos after World War 2. Worked mostly on space related things. Spent his entire long career there. Didn't retire until his 70s. Spent every Thanksgiving and a week a summer in Los Alamos growing up. It was a very nice and quiet community.
You met a lot of Nazis without knowing it
@@omeee Probably some of people grandfather was a nazi and their grandkid did not know about it
Germans are indeed love to work and usually nice and quiet
My great grandfather was one of the contractors in building LANL and the town.
par tu to yaha ka h
As someone who grew up in Los Alamos, the reason why so many people are millionaires is because they have nowhere to spend their money. Rents in the town are subsidized by the government, making the already limited commercial real estate incredibly expensive, thereby stifling the growth of businesses in the town. The nearest Walmart is over 30 minutes away by car and the nearest decent restaurants are 45 minutes away in Santa Fe. Isolation makes the town incredibly safe, but also incredibly boring to live in.
Would it be a good place for an outdoorsy type to retire?
@@birdnirdopinion of someone living 9000 km away: i bet not, just sand, sand, and hot sand around
@@Anankin12 Opinion of someone who grew up there, Los Alamos is built on a mesa with many surrounding mountains. It's actually super great for outdoorsy stuff and even has a ski-hill attached. It's a pretty common misconception that Los Alamos is just flat desert. We're a mountain town, many trees and stuff.
But if I'd never lived there I would've thought the same thing. A lot of the rest of New Mexico, like Albuquerque, is just straight up desert.
If you like quiet, small town vibes, mountain hiking, and snow sports, Los Alamos is great.
@@TheRealCurSeY that's literally warmer My Place with more sandy stuff then, good to know
Having no Walmart nearby is a good thing. It just means there’s more room for local businesses.
Cool trick having Truman signing a new law 2 years after he left the white house.
Damn I was hoping I was the first to notice
Weirdly, Truman did sign this act, the year in the video is just wildly wrong; he signed it into being in 1946
A second Atomic Energy Act was passed in 1954 (and signed by Eisenhower) that added onto the 1946 act (signed by Truman).
So, yes, Truman signed an Atomic Energy Act, and yes, an Atomic Energy Act was signed by the president in 1954, but the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 was not signed by President Truman.
Eisenhower was just that swell of a guy, he let his predecessor return to the White House to sign a bill!
@@thezombiecreeper Ike hated Truman, and Truman hated Ike.
The mere existence of this video seems to me like Ben saw Oppenheimer and fell down a Los Alamos rabbit hole after leaving the theater
Can't wait for the Barbie video soon! 😂
So HAI pays in Gumballs
Amy would get 10 Gumballs because she is an outside correspondent and Ben and Adam will get only 7 because they beat the boss in Jetlag.
Now you know why you don't see Amy in Jetlag. She doesn't want to lose her salary
No, HAI pays in Louds
Gumdrops not Gumballs. Very different objects.
@@cdvideodump What is a Loud? 🔊 🤔
I can promise you that when you have a heart attack, a person with a PhD would be as useful in this situation as a kitchen prom.
Unless that PhD is the right kind of medical PhD.
You can’t promise that, especially since you’d be wrong.
@@Leyrann That's fair.
@@mkbucklin and yet I did, and I'm not.
@@LeyrannMDs are not PhDs my guy. Someone with a PhD would only be useful in this situation if they also had an MD
Fun fact: if you, like I did, land at 278 Venado St in Los Alamos on Google maps just to see what the area was like, you'll find multiple deer staring at you (well, the Google maps car) from the front lawn.
Funny that 'Venado' means deer in spanish, so you have deers at deer street.
@Niet177 no way! I had no idea, that's actually hilariously awesome
was hoping to find 278 venados, slightly disappointed hahah
@@mattr0103someone in Google had a good sense of humor. 😂
I went straight to Google maps and it looks awesome
As someone who lives in española (a town VERY close to Los alamos) the wealth has come to this town pretty well, while the difference of them is night and day española has a much better economy them other towns around that side due to the labs having many people who commute from española but spend there money at the local grocery store(or more likely the Walmart) it’s been as Americanised as much as it could be.
Yes many Lab workers can't afford to live in Los Alamos County. There is not near enough housing to go around. So these high paid families have to live in surrounding areas. I used to commute from Abq 200 miles a day along with a few others in my building.
@@ziaride Jesus
And I thought the commute from la mesia was bad
Wait, nerds you lure in with gum balls? I thought all of your interns were unpaid. Rewarding nerds counts as payment. This better go on the HAI mistake video of 2023.
You're assuming that the nerds in question are interns and not other, smarter nerds they need to lure in for other, more sinister reasons.
Gumdrops are not gumballs. I see you're among the many who misheard and didn't see what he put on the screen.
I apologize, oh almighty one. I am not paid to make these comments and they may have mistakes, similar to sams interns.
Does the IRS accept promissory noted for their cut of the gumballs, or do you have to send the actual gumballs by parcel post?
No, they were lures in with them, but they weren't allowed to eat them, only see them
As a card carrying native I personally certify this video passes the “Every video that has content in NM must have at least one image of Shiprock, especially when desert amounts of sand are involved” test.
Lol and it’s usually hundreds of miles from the focus of the video
I grew up my whole life in Los Alamos and my dad is a nuclear physicist there.The highschool social hierarchy is organized by ACT scores so the football players are unpopular and get bullied by the debate team.😂
As someone who grew up in Los Alamos and still lives there, that’s not true. The high school is incredibly competitive true, ranked as one of the top schools in the nation, but the people at the top of the hierarchy are typical. Football players and soccer players, the pretty people, the smartest people. There is bullying, that is true, but it’s not the way you describe. I know a lot of people who are high schoolers right now and they are having a whole different experience than I did because of the changes that have been made. There is not nearly as much bullying as there used to be. Plus, the students are being given a more specialized education due to the addition of Freshman Academy and the online school.
Only school in the state where the swim team shaves their heads lmao
@@EstTheSword …our swim team definitely didn’t shave their heads 😂
@@mkbucklin Only the state-qualified varsity swimmers at the end of the highschool season. So like February. Albuquerque academy also bleaches their hair.
Nerd paradise lol
Fun fact: at 15.5%, Switzerland has a higher proportion of millionaires in their whole country than Los Alamos, a town specifically grown to be wealthy.
Lol
What’s the buying power of those Swiss millionaires though? I hear their costs are insanely high
Right, but you forgot to clarify whether the country is bigger than the city; and the fact that I'm not sure makes that percentage less impressive.
The Swiss number usually includes retirement money
Swiss Francs are incredibly expensive though. The Swiss People actually live a simple lifestyle because of it.
If I read the statistic correctly, the million dollars include real estate values. So having a property in a semi-decent area makes you a millionaire by default in these kind of statistics, even if you have very little money in the bank and don't feel like a millionaire at all. With that in mind, the 13.2% millionaire rate isn't that impressive anymore.
He says at the beginning that about one in every 7.5 people have “a million dollars in investable assets” - so my understanding is that would exclude real estate
@@seb_617 It would exclude the primary residence, but could include secondary residences
I never like this argument, if you have a million dollars in real estate that you inherited or bought 30+ years ago you’re still a millionaire. If you want to live the life then just sell it and go somewhere where everything is cheap and become the god of your new neighborhood. You won the game of life by happenstance.
Don’t worry. High inflation means sometime soon we will all be millionaires!
@@CountJeffula To be fair, I am technically a millionaire in Zimbabwe dollars.
I'm surprised you didn't send your writer Amy to the neighbouring poor county for a real "boots on the ground" comparison!
Honestly, I cannot blame him since I'm in one of the nearby counties lol
I’ve been to Los Alamos and had the Hoppenheimer IPA. It’s quite good. The brewery is literally across the street from Oppenheimer’s house. I spent the night there in my camper van.
2:50 That's in Ceurvo, it's a ghost town. It has a Church that was used by a predator. I did a whole documentary on it a couple years ago, spooky place.
A church used by a predator? You can shorten that to 'church', you know
E
I live in ABQ and work in IT. I often get recruiters with jobs in los alamos, but the housing cost there is crazy high and usually unless you actually work for the gov directly your living expenses aren't subsidized
Shoutout to my fellow Los Alamosians whose families are definitely not among the 13.2%...
Me 🙋♀️😂 my mom works at the County and it’s not as lucrative as the Lab.
@@mkbucklin It's weird how all of a sudden everyone knows the town exists. All those years of having to tell grown ass adults that New Mexico is in fact a US state and now suddenly everyone's an expert. 😂
@@shoelaced YES! It’s genuinely so frustrating to me. Cause there’s so much misinformation. 😂
There’s something similar in Washington State! We have Hanford, one of the worst designed facilities that made the radioactive material used in the Manhattan Project, and it is full of radioactive waste and deteriorating facilities! So now we have the Tri-Cities (Comprised of 4 cities: Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and West Richland) which was originally a mediocre farming location and railroad junction that became a proper metropolis location after Hanford was built nearby. The growth was so explosive one of the local highschools made their school mascot “The Bombers.” This was definitely a reference to the explosive population growth and not a tasteless reference to the city’s compliance in creating nuclear weapons that killed over 200,000 civilians. In any case, it still exists as a major metropolis that is roughly tied for the second largest urban area in Washington State, while also having the largest concentration of people with cancer in the Pacific Northwest due to all the radiation. So next time you’re in Washington State, remember the Tri-Cites, and then avoid going there.
Not even close to being the highest rates of cancer. Franklin and Benton, where the Tri-Cites sits are 21st and 24th out of 39 for cancer cases per 100,000 people.
Having been to Hanford clean up site and the B reactor several times, I only experienced high levels of radiation at the clean-up site. I would go every year for 5 years in the row exploring all the history of Hanford.
Skagit is 55.9 cases per 100,000
Klickitat is 53.4 cases per 100,000
Chelan is 53.5 cases per 100,00
Compared to Franklin at 37 cases per 100,000 and Benton at 35.3 cases per 100,000, it's clearly middle of the pack.
This data can be backed up by looking up CDC State Cancer profiles.
not tastless, actually pretty cool.
What about PNNL?
It's more of the site itself that has all the pollution due to improper storage of the radioactive waste as well as the improper handling of the materials
It's important to note a couple other things with the geography of why that part of Los Alamos is wealthier than Oak Ridge (I actually live in Oak Ridge so I study this alot). 1. The population of Oak Ridge is about 3 times that of Los Alamos. 2a. Oak Ridge is very close to Knoxville (third biggest city in TN and growing VERY rapidly). Given that west Knoxville is one of the wealthier areas of the city meaning that most lower income people cannot afford to live there and so have moved out to Oak Ridge. 2b. In the switch, many of the higher educated (and income) people who work at the Oak Ridge labs, dont actually live in Oak Ridge and instead live in the aforementioned wealthier (and much newer) parts of West Knoxville. 3. Oak Ridge's population is also more spread out and includes decent amounts of rural folk who are also (on average) much lower income.
Bro Los Alamos is in New Mexico
@@hdfwk4wjj69wjvi8 Bro, did you watch the video? They're comparing Los Alamos, NM to Oak Ridge, TN.
Not to mention Los Alamos' LANSCE proton beam which is pretty unique. Especially if you want to electronics to work in space or get exotic isotopes for medical research.
I live in a vacation town by a lake, so it's a lot like that here. The entire county is actually one of the poorest in the state, but the lake/vacation area spans 3 counties...so none of them get all the money. You're either on or near the water in a very nice house and a really nice bank account, or, you're living in an old single wide in the middle of a field. Many of the $1 million homes are nothing but vacation homes, empty half the time or more!
"in 1954, President Truman signed..."
Uh, Truman left office in 1953?
One thing omitted: it's a huge outpost of UC Berkeley talent. Along with Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore, it's part of the UC-DOE collaboration.
and one of the huge incentives to get engineers with families to come work at Los Alamos rather than Livermore (where the cost of living is way higher and the public schools are worse but at least you're in the Bay Area and not... Los Alamos) is that their kids still get California in-state tuition for UC schools despite not living in California
Los Alamos local here. Been here since 2005. Los Alamos is beautiful as are the surrounding mountains and valley, but there's not a ton of "city stuff" to do, meaning not a lot of restaurants and entertainment. But, we have so much to do outside in the mountains. The local joke starting a while back is that we're a drinking city with a science problem. If beer is your thing, check out Bathtub Row Brewery just a block from Fuller Lodge.
If I am having a heart attack, I most likely don't want help form a PhD. While there are medical doctors with PhDs, most of the ones at Los Alamos probably dont do medicene.
Yeah the script writers botched that one. Physics PhDs will just look at you and shuffle away. If you're going to have a heart attack at a government lab, you want something where they do alien autopsies. It stands to reason that the researchers would have to learn human medicine first before moving on to aliens.
I think there's another interesting story, but I'd have no idea how to tell it, and it definitely has a more Wendover vibe, but the Downwinders (people who lived in the blast radius of the test sites) and the increased incidences of cancers correlated with these inhabitants is a story that seems worth telling.
The town my dad grew up in is one of those towns. He says that in the 60s and 70s, pretty much every other person had thyroid cancer.
3:31 - I know these are light hearted videos, but having a PhD doesn't necessarily mean you're a Doctor of Medicine.
Yeah that’s the joke
My grandparents lived in Rio Arriba county and worked at Los Alamos labs. I was born in Rio Arriba county. It is a strange dynamic.
the good thing about watching oppenheimer is now i can understand this video with ease
I feel like the narrator would make an amazing auctioneer. Really love your content, thank you for all the hard work! ❤
Thanks for all the awesome content and great videos!!!
Used to live there during the summers in the 70s and it is a beautiful town
I used to live in Los Alamos, it's a super weird isolated town. I was a kid when I lived there, there was one pizza place, one family owned video rental place, and one grocery store, everything else was in Santa Fe or Albuquerque. Also at 4:08 the video on the right of Rio Arriba county is actually the road that leads into Los Alamos close to the canyon where the demon core incident occurred
I grew up in Los Alamos for most of my life. What is a demon core accident?
You must have lived in White Rock then. Pizza Hut, Smtih's, and the little video store in the same parking lot but just to the north of Smith's. I worked at the Pizza Hut for a few years when I was in High School ~ 30 years ago.
According to Credit Suisse's 2022 Global Wealth Report, 13.5% of Icelandic people are dollar millionaires. A whole country.
You didn't really say why Los Almos is so much more affluent than its neighbours
It must have been awkward for Eisenhower when Truman signed that bill
Corrales, Santa Fe (Las Campanias area) and Placitas have similar statistics; most of that wealth is mineral, cattle of movie stars. But you'd be surprised to see the massive wealth gaps between populations in a few small areas of NM -the state's wealth is a dichotomy in itself.
3:33 Meaning of doctor got mixed up... Got one for the HAI Mistakes video🎉😂
very interesting topic, and well presented as usual, but I do have to complain about the music being too loud as to become obstructive...
yeah, ikr. what was that about?
"Star spangled war crimes" is my new favorite phrase!
That Hoppenheimer IPA is made by the Manhattan Project Beer Company in Dallas, TX
Los Alomos and it's neighboring county are like Eagleton and Pawnee (Ref. Parcs & Rec)
I've been to Los Alamos a few times for work. The lab is a really strange place.
I was just reading about Los Alamos this morning so I recognized the outline of the town in the thumbnail... crazy that me and Sam were thinking about it at the same time
69% have degrees? Nice
1:58 Correction: Truman didn’t sign the Atomic Energy Act in 1954 because he wasn’t president in 1954. Eisenhower was, so he did.
Even worse, Truman did sign the act. In 1946. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Act_of_1946
WOAH WOAH WOAH, let's rewind to the part where you said that building nuclear bombs is now a civilian project. 1:58 we need more info on this stat!
The Atomic Energy act was signed by Truman in 1946 and then amended in 1954 (by Eisenhower) 1:58
Making this video wouldn't have anything to do with the recent release of a certain movie would it?
"Star Spangled War-Crimes" is an underrated line from this script.
In its history they have had 3 fire evacuations! Need to mention the radioactive dumping ground!
If you go out to some of the trails in the county, you can find grenade/ammunition warning signs at the trailheads.
As a out of work(stri*e) writer and researcher the gumdrop initiative sounds intriguing. Tell me more Sam.
For instance, is there unlimited gumdrops? If I relocate do you provide me with a gumdrop house?
New Mexico is scattered with pockets of wealth. Dozens of places with pocket millionaires
Couldn't get much different than me growing up in a singlewide trailer a stones throw from one of the richest men in the world Robert O Anderson who owned a million acres and had a helicopter pad on his house.
not all of those phd are medical though, in fact most are not. so you're still out of luck, or in luck depending on your medical insurance and how much those with medical phd charge.
It's also crazy expensive to live in Los Alamos, and has one of the highest rates of PHD's of any county in the US.
Pretty sure he said that in the video
@@lifeofabronovich7792 I should have finished the video before posting 😅
Great video. I was in college nearby in Santa Fe back in 2000 when the massive forest fires forced the evacuation of Los Alamos and Sandia Labs. An exciting time, with plenty of "fun" hypotheticals about what would happen if the site responsible for monitoring our nukes got too hot.
I remember that ...
1:36 “FUN” why did I start to sing the F.U.N Song from SpongeBob but the plankton version when I heard Fun
I don’t know, but something tells me that those doctors in los alamos are those of philosophy, which is definitely going to be helpful to treat heart attacks
People that have Philosophy doctorates don't invent and build bombs of mass destruction. They would just think about the morals of using them.
HAI is perfect "Need UA-cam with my food" content
My guess was Taos, NM. Not far off, but far enough.
Generally, if someone works at “the labs” as we call them in ABQ, they are very smart and very wealthy. Also I don’t know if this is still the case but I believe NM has the most phds per state
Yes, the most PHD’s per capita in the USA.
Yep, we’re #1 in PhDs, #50 in education.
Hopenhimer is made by a Dallas brewing co. Named The Manhattan Project Beer Co. they have a broad range of beer but all are named under the same idea of nuclear energy and bombs. Just FYI!
Bathtub Row Brewing Coop
Finally, something about my state that isn't just "Baking Bread"
I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking this 😭
or a crime report
@@maggiemay5510 Or that!
My wife was from Los Alamos and her parents were in first group of residents there in 1945. For years while a young child her dad would tell her that his occupation was "a janitor". LOL.
3:07 extremely disappointed that sam didn't say "nice"
1:58 : you said that Truman signed the Atomic Energy Act in 1954, however it was signed in 1946 and by 1954, Eisenhower was President. Hope this comment ends up on the the yearly “HAI Fuckups Video”❤️❤️❤️
Ya, Truman came into office after FDR, and he was there when the bombs were dropped over Japan
What I would like to know if those researchers with PhD are the same people as the millionaires referenced?
Mostly yes. But it takes several decades of living in poverty to get there. Don't run out and sign up for a PhD program just for the money.
Probably the majority of the PhDs above 50 or so. It takes a long time to get the PhD, then start earning decent money, then pay off the school debt, then buy a house, etc.
@@SalisburySnake Not for me, I just hope that those researchers are fairly paid. It would look bad if they build the whole place for science, yet some shady businessman would get rich leeching on them.
@@SalisburySnake nuclear engineering PhDs? nah. most of them have no intention of slumming it in academia - if they go straight to the lab they can start getting paid fairly well immediately. it'll take a while to become an actual millionaire but if you're making 6 figures in the middle of the nowhere that wealth accumulates fast
And.... I applied for a job there.
I am looking for a job and I found one there. So this video I apply timed (I saw on Nebula as well).
I knew it was expensive, but now I have an idea.
So thank you HAI, If I get an offer will be pointing out the excessive cost of living. $$$
The cost of living is actually not bad (could be better), especially if you're comparing to other places where you might find a job as a post-doc.
"its whiter" made me spit out my drink
random little detail
"Where are you Waltuh" - Mike
Wait I didn’t know 10/10s exist! What are other vids for that ranking?
Manhattan project produces some of my favorite IPA's I had no idea hoppenheimer was made there but it makes sense now. I always heard it was local but I guess that is a lie and truth at the same time when you factor in the expanse of the US.
The NEA would like to talk to you about gumdrop acquisition.
I want to go to Los Alamos now just to try Hoppenheimer 😅
Bathtub Row Brewing Company, you can look at Oppenheimer’s house as you do so as it is right across the street.
The background song is a copy of Walkman by Piano Fantasia :D
3:33 I wonder how many cardiologists are in Los Alamos?
Hey! I love the content and regularly watch, I just wanted to point out that from my opinion I find the number of stock image and video memes is getting a bit much. I love the maps and something contextual, but a guy and a generic t-shirt scratching his chin for the 50th time. It's a bit annoying. So love the content! Appreciate that. Might be slow down production if you can't use as much stock footage
3:59 is pure perfection
I knew you bid on that lighthouse!
I kinda understand why the wealth of Los Alamos doesn't pour over to the surrounding counties and cities. Nobody is interested in giving up money they spent years working for.
Waltuh we need to invest Waltuh
Ha. As soon as I saw the thumbnail, I knew what this video was about. I lived in Los Alamos for a couple of years.
There are a few misrepresentations in the video, but it's at least entertaining.
There’s always misrepresentations when it’s about Los Alamos. Cause the people making the videos have never actually been there.
"Hoppenheimer" 😂
There's one for the mistakes video: "Truman signed the act in 1954", even though Truman lost the election of 1952 and was replaced by Eisenhower, who was president in 1954.
Great video HAI!
1:57 Truman signed? I thought Truman was president from April 12, 1945 - January 20, 1953 and was signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower on August 30, 1954.
It sure would have been a neat trick for Truman to sign that act in 1954 since he stopped being President in 1952 but hey: Maybe Ike was too busy reading *West of the Pecos* by Zane Gray that afternoon. Also, if one were looking for the shining moment to say that pronunciation really does matter, could one do better than having our illustrious militant word-mangler say "Opper-heimer" right NOW, while literally everyone is walking around saying the guy's name correctly three or four times a day?
WHAT ARE THE ODDDDDDDS BRUH? I was literally randomly looking at Los Alamos on google earth earlier this morning.
Next week: HAI uploads a Barbie Themed Video
*3:08* nice
3:06 Nice.
Background music is waaaay too loud on this one
Why did I get recommender to this after watching "that" movie... shit I forgot what it's called but I think it rhymes with synthesizer
Tbf I'm pretty sure 7 1/2 people is pretty close to the actual population of Los Alamos
Truman wasn't President in 1954 so either your date or President was wrong for The Atomic Energy Act
I came to the comments to say this lol.
I looked it up, and he seems to have mixed up the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (signed by Truman, related to the sharing of nuclear information with the UK and Canada and the turnover of nuclear technology from military to civilian control) and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (signed by Eisenhower, amended and updated the previous act).
So Truman was the right president, but he gave the year of the later version of the Act rather than the original version Truman signed.
Very curious why Truman was still signing things in 1954 when he left office in 1953…
haha, Hoppenheimer is the bomb