“Unemployment remains at near-record levels, and most Americans are struggling to rebuild their battered finances. But the country’s wealthy are once again doing just fine, thank you. No group was immune to the downturn. In 2008, as the financial crisis raged, the stock market hit bottom and the Great Recession ate into the economy, the number of millionaires in the United States plunged. But last year the number of millionaires bounced up sharply, new data show. And after that decline and rebound, the millionaire class held a larger percentage of the country’s wealth than it did in 2007. “It’s been a recession where everyone took a hit — with the bottom taking a bigger hit,” said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies economic inequality. But “the wealthy alone have bounced back.” The return of the millionaires last year was not limited to the United States. China saw the swiftest growth in millionaires, and now has the third-most of any country, trailing the U.S. and Japan, according to the data released Thursday by Boston Consulting Group.” – from LA Times