Million Dollar Round Table

The Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) is a trade association formed in 1927 to help Insurance brokers and financial advisors establish best business practices and develop ethical and effective ways to increase client interest in financial products, specifically risk based products like life insurance, disability and long term care. As of the end of 2008 the organization has more than 39,000 members in 82 countries and territories.

The name comes from a group of 32 successful life insurance agents who met at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Each agent could demonstrate they had sold more than $1,000,000 of life insurance that year. Their meeting focused on improving technical knowledge and enhancing their sales abilities as well as maintaining ethical standards in the industry. The 1927 meeting evolved into the formation of the organization that exists today. An organization dedicated to encouraging ethical values, sharing ideas and concepts clients have found to be valuable and helping to improve business practices.

Round Table

The Round Table is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his Knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status. The table was first described in 1155 by Wace, who relied on previous depictions of Arthur's fabulous retinue. The symbolism of the Round Table developed over time; by the close of the 12th century it had come to represent the chivalric order associated with Arthur's court, the Knights of the Round Table.

History

The Round Table first appears in Wace's Roman de Brut, a Norman language adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae finished in 1155. Wace says Arthur created the Round Table to prevent quarrels among his barons, none of whom would accept a lower place than the others.Layamon added to the story when he adapted Wace's work into the Middle English Brut in the early 13th century, saying that the quarrel between Arthur's vassals led to violence at a Yuletide feast. In response a Cornish carpenter built an enormous but easily transportable Round Table to prevent further dispute. Wace claims he was not the source of the Round Table; both he and Layamon credited it instead to the Bretons. Some scholars have doubted this claim, while others believe it may be true. There is some similarity between the chroniclers' description of the Round Table and a custom recorded in Celtic stories, in which warriors sit in a circle around the king or lead warrior, in some cases feuding over the order of precedence as in Layamon. There is a possibility that Wace, contrary to his own claims, derived Arthur's round table not from any Breton source, but rather from medieval biographies of Charlemagne—notably Einhard's Vita Caroli and Notker the Stammerer's De Carolo Magno—in which the king is said to have possessed a round table decorated with a map of Rome.

Millionaire

A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. It can also be a person who owns one million units of currency in a bank account or savings account. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire, which makes that amount of wealth a goal for some, and almost unattainable for others. In countries that use the short scale number naming system, a billionaire is someone who has at least a thousand times a million dollars, euros, or the currency of the given country (e.g. $1,000,000,000). In contrast, a billionaire in countries that use the long scale number naming system would be someone who has at least a million times a million units of currency (e.g. $1,000,000,000,000). There is no evidence that anyone on the planet has achieved the latter in either US dollars or euros. The increasing number of millionaires is partially due to prevailing economics, especially inflation; as the individual value of each unit of currency decreases, achieving a million of these becomes easier. The purchasing power of a million US dollars in 1959 is equivalent to $8.12 million in 2016.