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The person holding the winning Powerball ticket is somewhere in Michigan. That person — a single human being holding a little slip of paper — is also $337 million richer (minus taxes, which brings the lump-sum payment to $241 million). The jackpot is the third biggest in Powerball history.

The winning numbers are : 6, 27, 46, 51, 56 and the Powerball, 21. The winner purchased the ticket at a gas station in Lapeer, a town about 45 miles from Detroit. Five tickets sold are worth $1 million, and another ticket in Nebraska is worth $2 million.

The odds of winning were 175 million-to-one and more than 86 million tickets were sold. According to the senior drawing manager of the Multi-State Lottery Association, Sue Dooley, everyone has an equal chance of winning when they plunk down their $2 for a ticket. Interesting facts about the drawing:

-One of those machines costs $55,000. Each of the balls costs $60.

-Cameras positioned all around the Florida studio where the drawing takes places beam the proceedings back to the lottery HQ outside of Des Moines, I.A.

-Iowa officials take a final count of the jackpot about an hour before the drawing, so it can be accurately announced during the drawing.

So even if you didn’t win, you’re now rich in lottery information.

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by R. Asmerom

Celeste Walker, better known as Madam CJ Walker, is well known in the African-American community as the first African-American millionaire who built an empire on hair and beauty products. In the above video, Harvard Business School historian Nancy F. Koehn acknowledges that Walker’s story is not as celebrated in the cannon of American business history and discusses the significance of Walker’s emergence during the turbulent times of the early 1900s. The odds were stacked against her as a Black woman, making her endurance and success all the more remarkable.

According to her bio, Koehn’s research “focuses on effective leadership in turbulent times and how leaders, past and present, craft lives of purpose, worth, and impact.”

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The Occupy Wall Street movement has swept the nation, with new factions popping up in new cities as we speak. Though specific agendas vary, there is one very clear purpose behind this leaderless coalition: spread the wealth. And, while some have found refuge in the movement, others have been inspired by their exclusion from the one-percent club. However, it is not the sort of inspiration that marches through the streets or chants in the cold rain. It is the reality-check that comes with self-made economic success stories, such as GOP presidential nominee Herman Cain, telling them, “If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, it’s your fault;” it is the inspiration that cultivates ideas, creates and innovates.

Rich is a subjective term, but perhaps, there is some truth to the aforementioned. Economic success rarely comes to the faint of heart and those resistant to sacrifice. Although many of us would like to be wealthy, few are willing to do what it takes to get there; and, for reasons such as those listed below, we are not part of the $350,000 (roughly the amount of income it takes to be among the nation’s wealthiest) and up crowd:

(Daily Finance) — Who wants to be a millionaire? Whowouldn’twant to be? But for those on the lower end of the pay scale, striving to achieve a seven-figure net worth probably seems futile. But it can be done.  With the U.S. minimum wage paying $7.25 an hour — that amounts to $14,500 over the course of a full-time 2,000 work-hour year — becoming a millionaire on a minimum-wage salary wouldn’t be easy to accomplish by any stretch of the imagination.  Even in the cheapest parts of the country, housing, health, food, utilities, clothing, and transportation costs need to be covered before investing makes sense. And even with an aggressive investment plan, reaching a $1 million target will takemultiple decadesto accomplish for someone earning minimum wage.

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(Daily Finance) — If you read earlier this week about the World Wealth Report’s announcement of an8.3% increase in millionaires worldwide in 2010, you might be wondering how you could get on that list.  The idea’s not so far-fetched. The number of high-net-worth individuals — those with $1 million or more in assets other than their primary homes — passed 3 million in the United States. That’s about 1% of the population, which means a millionaire is probably living within a slingshot’s range of you. You could be the next one in your neighborhood.  DailyFinance attended the conference for the World Wealth Report, researched by Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management (BAC) and Capgemini, and asked some big shots there and elsewhere what it takes to become a millionaire. The advice was rich in common sense.

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(AOL/The Boom Box) — Teenage phenom Soulja Boy is about to publish his first book, ‘Teenage Millionaire.’ The book discusses the 19-year-old star’s rise to fame and serves as an inspirational tale for those with similar ambitions.

“I made my first million dollars when I was 16 years old,” Soulja Boy told Billboard. “I came from a place where a lot of people don’t make it out to see the type of things I’ve seen around the world and see the amount of money that I’ve obtained. I just wanna tell all the people how I did it.”

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By Charles Payne, CEO & Principal Analyst

As much as success has been dogged and treated with disdain there is no doubt in my mind that the overwhelming majority of rich people have a different sort of will and determination than the masses. I think that it’s crazy when the crowd that runs home at 5:00:01 would have contempt for those that continue to work deep into the evening. According to the author of “The Millionaire Next Door”, 80% of wealth is first-generation affluent. The idea that every rich person in this country was born with a silver spoon is a myth driven by the envy of those that watch from afar in their Lazy Boy. I mention this because this nation needs its citizens that are currently wealthy and those that have the skill, guts, and luck to join their ranks to be able to operate without constraints. Those constraints range from harsh rhetoric by politicians and the tidal wave of new taxes, fees, and regulations on the horizon.

Now is the time to unleash our entrepreneurs and small businesses, and also to encourage big businesses to reverse job cuts and money-hoarding as they prepare to battle on the global stage. According to Chicago based marketing and research firm the Spectrom Group, U.S. millionaires increased in number by 16% to 7.8 million; households with net worth of $5.0 million or more increased by 17% to 980,000 in 2009. The thing is that these rebounds were powered by the bounce back in the stock market. Just about everyone I know that abhors the rich doesn’t “play” the stock market. Of course, they like to shop. That image of a security guard being trampled to death at a Wal-Mart (WMT) on Black Friday a couple of years ago proves trickle down is the only way wealth can really spread through our economy. When President Obama talks about a trickle up economy we are already there. The masses spend their money and send it to the top of the economic pyramid.

NFIB Observations

Yesterday, the National Federation of Independent Businesses released results from its latest survey. Most readings slipped month over month.

* Optimism fell 1.3 to 88; the low last March was 81.0 and the record low was 80.1 posted in 1980.
* Will increase employment: -1%.
* Will increase inventory: -7%
* Earnings expectations were less negative but abysmal still

We need small businesses to save the day, but that can’t happen until the coast is clear. The battle against business has to cease. I’m not sure why the White House doesn’t listen to any of the major organizations representing small businesses and yet claim to be friends to small businesses. Perhaps it’s because these organizations have been critical of policy proposals, but that shouldn’t matter. In fact, skepticism should be welcomed and there should be a willingness to learn from those that are in the trenches. NFIB on healthcare reform: http://www.nfib.com/tabid/565/Default.aspx?cmsid=50819.

The government really can’t create jobs unless they raise taxes on the shrinking pool of taxpayers, thereby negating any positive impact. The fact is that I think the government should abandon its ambitions to create jobs and instead find a way to extend an olive branch to the people that know how to create real jobs that generate economic prosperity. The government needs to fertilize the environment so businesses know they will not be railroaded and demonized. There aren’t many people out there that pay their bills, pay for their children’s education, and put cash away for retirement that don’t do this as part of riding the coattails of the wealthy.

The Market

It was summer like weather in New York yesterday, and summer like action in the market. Volume had already been anemic like a lazy, hazy week in late August. The bias is to the upside and that’s the good news. But, we are reminded of trepidation bubbling not so deep beneath the surface. Less visible is the angst of those that have missed the entire party. Yesterday was the anniversary of the market bottom and today is the anniversary of the new bull market. I don’t like to use these terms, by the way, bull and bear… who cares? It is only one more thing to fret about. You know that even though the market is significantly higher from the lows this is still the least celebrated rebound I’ve ever seen. The rally that began in 2003 was largely ignored by the media and was only mentioned by politicians as evidence the rich were detached from Main Street reality.

Yesterday, 1,072 stocks closed at their 52-week high or within 2% of that high water mark. Most are significantly lower than their all-time highs. By the way, there were only 20 new lows. In a way this only exacerbates the dilemma for fence-sitters. Keep in mind that bull markets don’t fizzle out quickly. I haven’t done in-depth research, but will; in the meantime Hays Advisory wrote a piece saying that the average bull market is 29 months. Also, Sam Stovall has published work stating that the average bull market is 3.7 years long with a median of 3.2 years. He actually breaks down bull market moves for each year: 1st year is 38%, 2nd year is 12%, 3rd year is 3%, and the 4th year is 14%.

We’ll see what happens this time around, but in the meantime we are focused on finding companies taking market share, expanding margins, and growing the top line organically. For the broad market, the next leg up could be powerful. The S&P 500 is holding above its 50-day moving average and clearing 1,200.0 would be significant, and without a doubt lure many of those fence-sitters into the game. Keep in mind that according to ICI in the week of February 24, $8.0 billion flowed into bond funds while Americans only invested $151.0 million in equities

Charles Payne is the CEO and Principal Analyst of Wall Street Strategies . This post was republished from his company’s column, WStreet Market Commentary.