Biggest argument people are going to have against this is reading the headline and then realizing most their retirement is in the form of unrealized gains. But if you then just read the qualifier of $100 million, you will quickly realize we are not talking about normal people here. We aren’t even talking about normal rich people. We are talking about the 1% of 1% people.
I think they left out the most obvious questions-
Are you super rich?
Can you afford elective heath operations that will potentially prevent life ending illnesses or affliction?
Can you afford expensive lifestyles tailored for your health?
Can you afford to reduce all forms of stress in your life and live with no worries?
Seriously. We are talking about tire tread compared to weight. Both use multiple sizes of tire depending on the year/model. There are a few that overlap in diameter to get the closest to comparison but they still have a very different width. We are talking about a 235/35R18 vs a 235/75R18. That is a huge difference in wall height/aspect ratio and changes how the tire gives under power. Those numbers massively change depending on model as well. Something like an f150 raptor could have a 315/70R17, almost a foot wide. So comparing just the weight and saying they are close enough is far from a fair comparison.
Alternative headline: US Supreme Court surprised all by agreeing with the bare minimum and not forcing partisan political opinions into laws.
You would be surprised. If you worked a decent job early in life, moved up the ladder, retired as upper middle class making $250k-ish, it is kind of expected to have about 2-3 mil in your retirement. Hell, if you work a half way decent government job and invested wisely your entire life and didn’t have stupid amounts of debt, you should have about a mil in retirement.
1 mil in retirement gives you about 5,500 per month at a growth rate of 6%, withdraw rate of 3%, and annual inflation at 3%. The current recommended retirement is a little under a mil.
As far as retirement funds counting as tradable assets, that is how your 401k accounts work. It is literally a stock market account. The question comes down to when the tax is paid, pre or post withdrawal. In a roth IRA you pay the tax coming in. In a traditional IRA you pay tax when the money comes out. Either way, as long as the money stays in the account you can make it liquid, put it in a stock, bond, mutual fund, whatever you want as long as the account can do it; but in the end it is in a trading account and short of the cash in there, it is a tradable asset.