DarkRange55
Enlightened
- Oct 15, 2023
- 1,447
Looking at the timeline of how wealth was created - 1,000 years ago they didn't have dollars or pounds or euros. They had something else. Well a long time ago it was chiefs of tribes then you had warriors like Alexzander the Great and Genghis Khan, then you have explorers like Balboa and Pizarro and then kings and monarchs and then you had families and bankers like the Rothschilds and then you had the Robert Barrons, Carnegie, Rockafeller. Finally in the last century you had Henry Ford an industrialist. And lastly there was the rise of the corporation in the 1950's.
I don't believe this will last forever but it is the time right now, we live in the time of the self made.
There are many secret "shadow" billionaires who are not on Forbes lists and are much wealthier than some of the people on it. And that is not a conspiracy. Rich people hide their money and assets.
Most billionaires are cash-poor in the sense that most of their wealth is tied in shares of companies. Many use treasuries for short-term liquidity and forgo a traditional high-salary
In lieu of stock options for tax purposes. And also the concept of "buy, barrow, die." Basically borrowing against their own companies to avoid taxes.
All time, probably Mansa Musa
en.wikipedia.org
Contenders:
Saudi Royal Family:
They're all from the same family; namely, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, and has been ruled by the House of Saud since the 18th century. The Saudi royal family (the Al Saud) is massive by any standard -- it's estimated that there about 15,000 members. The main family line are the descendants of King Abdulaziz Al Saud (the founder of modern Saudi Arabia) who had 35 sons, but at least three other (somewhat minor) branches exist who would be considered by western standards as distant cousins. Their main source of wealth are the ultra generous stipends each of them receive from the government. The amount of that stipend varies by how senior the prince is. According to leaked US cables from 1996, it starts from $800/month for the lowliest prince up to $270,000/month for the sons of the founder. The princes supplement that income by owning businesses that have the privilege of being above the law in many cases. Forced partnerships with successful businesses owned by commoners and land grabs are not unheard of. Also, they don't have to pay their electricity or phone bills (as the main power and phone companies are subsidiaries of the government) and they can fly for free in the national airline.
King Abdullah started some reforms which included cutting back on some of those perks (no one is really sure how much), but for the most part life is pretty good for your typical Saudi prince. All the main ministerial positions in government are reserved for members of the House of Saud. And King Abdullah has four wives, seven sons and 15 daughters. The family is rich because they literally own Saudi Arabia; and with it, they control 18% of the world's oil.
I believe they gave over 200 billion barrels of oil, supposedly. What's crazy too about Saudi Arabia is that it is typically incredibly easy to extract the oil - it isn't very deep down in the ground and it's easy to drill through the ground there. Therefore it's cheap to produce all that oil. That's very different than the Canadian oil sands, for instance, or deep water wells off the coast of Europe - those are all expensive places to drill. Oil prices have to be high to make it worthwhile to drill there but Saudi Arabia's oil is pretty much always easy to drill and with a nice profit margin for them.
It's estimated that the king has a personal fortune of $18 billion.
The Saudi royal family are many people who are all wealthy who together have an estimated fortune of $1 trillion. We do not know exactly how much each of them own but it is unlikely that any of them is very high on such lists. A lot of these lists exclude monarchs all together as their wealth and the wealth of the government they rule is often one and the same and it would therefore be an unfair comparison.
See, modern theories of economics break down when capitalism gives way to the older traditions of power that preceded it. How do you measure the wealth of a dictator? Saudi Arabia is worth trillions upon trillions, like most large countries. In theory, the House of Saud is led by Mohammed bin Salman controls all of this, making their personal wealth synonymous with that of Saudi Arabia as a whole. In practice, most of the wealth goes to regular government function, like infrastructure, defense, and social services. Only a small portion is actually used by the Saudi royals. So while I think that the Saudis certainly are 'on paper' likely trillionaires, by any real definition they are far from it. Just like Julius Caesar was not really the largest landowner in antiquity because for a time all of Egypt was his "personal property" which he in no way managed in any reasonable fashion, I think it's disingenuous to call the Saudis really the sole financial recipients of the state. Now, are they still likely the richest group of people on the planet? They certainly are a leading contender. But not quite by that much.
Governments:
www.statista.com
(The king of Cambodia is probably rhe poorest monarch in the world but still makes $1 million USD a year).
True, these are Forbes numbers which do not include "public life" made fortunes which include Royalty (Kings, Queens, Sultans, …) and presidents (or equivalent). For that you should peak the world dictatorships followed by the most corrupt countries and communist countries and look to their leaders and ex-leaders.
Generally governments are excluded from such lists. Is Joe Biden one of the wealthiest people in the world because he controls the United States? The Saudi royal family is a monarchy that controls Saudi Arabia so their wealth is the wealth of the country. Distinguishing personal wealth from government budget is impossible.
A lot of the British Royal Family's wealth is in its art collection.
Lists like that tends to exclude dictators and other people where the title is why they have the money. What is private property and what is the property of the government is often mixed together? I can't find that stated on Forbes's own website, I am likely missing it. But you can find it stated about the Forbes list on other websites.
Royalty are not excluded from the Forbes billionaire list if that's what you're talking about and there are 4 royals from the United Arab Emirates on that list. Saudi Royals have also made that list in the past. They're not currently on that list because they're not worth very much. The wealth of the Saudi Royal family comes from its ownership of ARAMCO, which is the state oil company in Saudi Arabia. The $1 trillion figure that you saw for their wealth is sort of an internet pseudoscience thing based on ARAMCO's official valuation of ~$2 trillion. If ARAMCO is worth that much then, yes, the Saudi Royal family is worth $1 trillion. But ARAMCO isn't worth anywhere near that. ARAMCO is technically a "publicly traded" company, but only 5% of the company is publicly owned. That 5% of the available stock is only traded on the Saudi stock exchange. Only a handful of people are allowed to trade on the Saudi stock exchange and the amount of ARAMCO stock traded on a daily basis is usually less than $500. That means that the price that the stock trades for is fake - its essentially a show put on by the Saudi Royal family. ARAMCO is difficult to value because its revenues are about 6 times higher than the next largest oil company in the world while its costs are technically lower. That is, it costs ARAMCO almost nothing to pull oil out of the ground. The issue is that even though ARAMCO is privately owned by the Saudi Royal family, most of its revenue is taken by the Saudi government to allow the country to function. When you look at it from that perspective, ARAMCO is actually operating at a fairly large loss. It can't do anything to reduce those "costs" because if it stops supporting the Saudi government then the country will collapse. Given that bizarre situation, no one really believes that ARAMCO is worth very much and therefore, the Saudi royal family doesn't have the kind of wealth that would be suggested given ARAMCO's official valuation.
Say if a Saudi prince owned a pice of highway that would be counted towards his fortune, however its value is mostly that when people use this highway they increase the general productivity meaning the prince can collect more taxes. That is something that Elon Musk or Jeff Besos does not have the ability to do. The exception to this was the Sultan of Brunei who appeared in many lists of the richest people with an estimated wealth of $20 billion. This inclusion was controversial as it was hard to say which
monarchs to include and which to exclude. So when Bill Gates and several other people passed his wealth he was dropped from such lists.
These billionaires are not even comparable to what some other people not listed here hold.
We know from the stories surrounding Putin's wealth ($200-$500 billion) and that of the Egyptian ex-dictator ($70-$700 billion) that powerful and wealthy men have ways to keep their real wealth secret. These are not the real numbers. I am actually referring to the Anglo-Saxon banking dynasties that reside in the city of London and the east coast. The people that invented Cayman Islands shell company systems and know exactly how to hide wealth. Not only those people but also Chinese, Indian business men. Russian oligarchs. These people have gigantic hidden riches.
What's the real net worth of Kim Jong un? It shows $5 billion net worth since 2013. Some say $1 trillion. This data is yet to change and with no available details or sources. It's hard to quantify. His net worth is skimming off the top of the DPRK. All the top shelf liquor and food he consumes comes from the coffers of the state. He's certainly quite wealthy, even by international standards, but the North Korean economy is fairly isolated compared to the global economy, making it challenging to place an exact value on his assets. What's the value of a mansion in North Korea? I could argue in some sense it's not worth anything since there's not exactly a market to sell it. Of course that's not exactly true in it does have some intrinsic value. But could explain why we can't say what his exact net worth is. He also wouldn't necessarily be able to convert all of his wealth to another country's currency, so it's hard to say what his net worth is compared to other billionaires.
Room 39, also known as Bureau 39, is a secretive organization in North Korea, allegedly involved in illicit activities to generate foreign currency for the country's leadership and their slush funds. It is believed to be responsible for a range of operations, including counterfeiting, drug trafficking, and international fraud. Possibly even running a North Korean restaurant chain with stores outside the country. Room 39's activities are crucial for maintaining the financial stability and luxury of North Korea's elite.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Banking Clans:
But outside of someone that is a political or military leader, i.e. Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Kim Jong-un, ect. - government residence not owned by Putin, but on the balance sheet of the state), the royal family is another house that is extremely wealthy along with the Rockefellers, Rothschilds. The problem is they've spread the wealth between many individuals, all of them are super rich but not anywhere near as rich as a person would have been if all the wealth went to them. The wealth between family members in the house of Saud is in name only. Anytime Mohammad Bin Salman wants he can take all of his family's cash which he has.
What sources are there on the Rothschilds still being ultra-rich? Most historical wealth has evaporated or has been seized or has otherwise left them. They're still in business and are by no means poor. But the only media I have seen claiming they are the richest and most powerful group on the planet are exaggerating at best and usually just shady and untrustworthy. I used to work just around the corner from their investment offices (and know someone who works there); it's literally their own personal mini sky scraper in the middle of the City of London.
They're still very much very, very rich. Trump has many skyscapers. I'd say owning a skyscraper is barely any proof of being the richest group of people on the planet. It just means they're still rich. Or have large loans. Most buildings where the tower has his name, he gets royalty by owner of said building. Their headquarters is a skyscraper:
en.wikipedia.org
The Rothschilds are like a private Goldman Sachs though, with some of their family firms being public or at least having known shareholders. The difference from a place like Goldman is that the family controls it, so I can see where the fear comes from. That, and the fact that they made all of their money doing exactly what conspiracy theorists fear. They played all sides of the Napoleonic wars and bought up all British bonds a few hours before the news of the victory at Waterloo broke, just to name one example. It was a Rothschild in London that financed the sale of the Louisiana purchase so that Napoleon could get some cash to keep fighting the English.
The Rothschilds aren't a family like you'd think
of one (a grandparent, some aunts and uncles
and cousins etc) but much more of a clan, with branches all over Europe. Each of the major branches have businesses and investments worth many billions; the main reason we don't know how wealthy they are is because of how spread out they are, but when you see the number of large firms they have that still exist it would be impossible for them, as a family, not to have wealth in the many many billions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family for some background info.
Rockefeller's wealth amounted to 1/65 of the year's GNP or almost 3% of US GDP that year at the time of his death.
But America (like most of the world) was a lot poorer in 1913 than it was in 2007 or now.
Adjusting for inflation $900 million in 1913 would "only" be $19 billion in 2007 or over $25 billion now.
It's unclear how much of it is "left". It's even possible, with the passing of David Rockefeller in 2017, that none of his descendants are billionaires in their own right. Though they certainly control at least several billion dollars jointly through their trusts.
Gerald R. Ford's pick for VP Nelson Rockafeller, JD Sr.'s grandson.
Senator: What is your net worth?
JDR: I don't know.
Senator: I beg your pardon?
JDR: I have no idea.
Senator: What do you mean? How can you have no idea?
JDR: I mean that I have no idea; there's enough money that my household bills are paid, including my staff and all my taxes, and I know I have enough to live on, even if I do so regardless of how extravagant it might be.
Senator: Can you give us an estimate within a few…million dollars?
JDR: If you give me 90 days I can get an approximation as of a specific date.
Senator: It'll take that long?
JDR: I could go for a much more specific amount with more time, but no one in my family has ever been asked that question.
Gates:
The richest man in modern times is not Putin, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. It's Bill Gates - he gave most of his shares to hai charity. So his current net worth is about $150 billion. But he used to own and he charitably gave away his 56% in Microsoft. If he hadn't given those shares to charity - Microsoft is worth $2.7 trillion, he's worth $1.3 trillion.
Criminals:
Bruce Bagley, a now 78-year old University of Miami professor and chair of international studies, estimated El Chapo's net worth between $2-4 billion (he was actually charged with money laundering in 2019. He pleaded guilty to helping to launder $2.5 million in exchange for a $250,000 payment and was sentenced to six months in prison).
Obviously he wasn't filling taxes so it's difficult to accurately assess. In 2012 Business Insider reported his net worth at $1.3 billion.
Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha - $5.65 billion, he was one of the leaders of the Medellin Cartel and was actually included in Forbes' billionaires list in 1988. He was killed in 1989.
Khun Sa - $5 billion, born Chang Chi-fu in 1933, dubbed the "Opium King," was a notorious drug lord in Southeast Asia, particularly active in the Golden Triangle area. Of Chinese and Shan descent, he rose to power in the 1960s by forming his own militia and controlling a large portion of the global opium trade. He used his drug profits to fund an insurgency for the independence of the Shan State in Myanmar. The American ambassador to Thailand called him "the worst enemy the world has." He "surrendered" to the Burmese government in 1996, disbanding his army and moving to Yangon with his wealth and mistresses where he engaged in "legitimate" business projects, especially mining and construction. He died in 2007 at the age of 73. Today, his children are prominent businesspeople in Myanmar.
Misc.:
The Pritzker family is one of the wealthiest families in the United States (staying in the top 10 of Forbes magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the magazine began such listings in 1982).
John D. Rockefeller: The Richest Man in the World - Case - Faculty & Research - Harvard Business School
John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) Wealth: 1.53% of the U.S. economy.* America's first billionaire -- thanks to oil. 2 Cornelia Vanderbilt (1794-1877) Wealth: 1.15% of the U.S.economy. Built an impressive empire of steamboats and railroads. 3 John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) Wealth: 0.93% of the U.S. economy. His initial fortune came from the fur trade, then later in New York real estate. 4 Stephen Girard (1750-1831) Wealth: 0.67% of the U.S. economy. Made his money in shipping and later was the largest investor in the First Bank of the United States. 5 Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) Wealth: 0.60% of the U.S. economy. Started by building iron bridges for the railroads, then cashed in with steel. 6 Bill Gates (1955-) Wealth: 0.58% of the U.S. economy. King of the operating system; emperor of software. 7 Alexander Turney Stewart (1803-1876) Wealth: 0.56% of the U.S. economy.
Founded the first department store in the United States. 8 Frederick Weyerhaeuser (1834-1914) Wealth: 0.55% of the U.S. economy. Built an empire on America's insatiable appetite for timber.
OTHER TECH TITANS IN THE TOP 100 38 Paul Allen (1953-) Wealth: 0.20% of the U.S. economy. The Microsoft cofounder ranks just after James J. Hill (1838-1916), who built an empire of railroads and towns in the Northwest, and just before Elias Hasket Derby (1739-1799), who made his fortune during the Revolutionary War in privateering and trade. Derby may have been America's first millionaire.61 Steve Ballmer (1956-) Wealth: 0.13% of the U.S. economy.
Microsoft's key tactician ranks after George Washington (1732-1799), who married one of the wealthiest widows in the nation, and before Anthony N. Brady (1834-1913), who consolidated New York transit systems and utilities.66 Michael Dell (1965-) Wealth: 0.12% of the U.S. economy. The Dell Computer founder ranks just after George Pullman (1831-1897), who came up with the idea of sleeping cars in trains, and just before Robert Wood Johnson Jr. (1893-1968), who started Johnson & Johnson. 90 Larry Ellison (1944-) Wealth: 0.07% of the U.S. economy. The Oracle CEO ranks before Captain Robert Dollar (1844-1932), who founded what would become the American President shipping line, and after Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), whose wealth came from the purchase of land. *Wealth figures calculated by dividing a person's total wealth by America's GNP at the time of the person's death, or if the person is still alive, by 1997 GNP figure. Rankings and historical information from The Wealthy 100 by Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther (Carol Publishing Group, 1996). Ranking of non-tech figures limited to only those listed in The Wealthy 100. The wealth calculated from the most recent publicly available SEC filings. Share price as of 5/21/98.
There have been trillionaires already… in other countries currencies. Like Zimbabwe at one point for example.
I don't believe this will last forever but it is the time right now, we live in the time of the self made.
There are many secret "shadow" billionaires who are not on Forbes lists and are much wealthier than some of the people on it. And that is not a conspiracy. Rich people hide their money and assets.
Most billionaires are cash-poor in the sense that most of their wealth is tied in shares of companies. Many use treasuries for short-term liquidity and forgo a traditional high-salary
In lieu of stock options for tax purposes. And also the concept of "buy, barrow, die." Basically borrowing against their own companies to avoid taxes.
All time, probably Mansa Musa
Mansa Musa - Wikipedia
Contenders:
Saudi Royal Family:
They're all from the same family; namely, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, and has been ruled by the House of Saud since the 18th century. The Saudi royal family (the Al Saud) is massive by any standard -- it's estimated that there about 15,000 members. The main family line are the descendants of King Abdulaziz Al Saud (the founder of modern Saudi Arabia) who had 35 sons, but at least three other (somewhat minor) branches exist who would be considered by western standards as distant cousins. Their main source of wealth are the ultra generous stipends each of them receive from the government. The amount of that stipend varies by how senior the prince is. According to leaked US cables from 1996, it starts from $800/month for the lowliest prince up to $270,000/month for the sons of the founder. The princes supplement that income by owning businesses that have the privilege of being above the law in many cases. Forced partnerships with successful businesses owned by commoners and land grabs are not unheard of. Also, they don't have to pay their electricity or phone bills (as the main power and phone companies are subsidiaries of the government) and they can fly for free in the national airline.
King Abdullah started some reforms which included cutting back on some of those perks (no one is really sure how much), but for the most part life is pretty good for your typical Saudi prince. All the main ministerial positions in government are reserved for members of the House of Saud. And King Abdullah has four wives, seven sons and 15 daughters. The family is rich because they literally own Saudi Arabia; and with it, they control 18% of the world's oil.
I believe they gave over 200 billion barrels of oil, supposedly. What's crazy too about Saudi Arabia is that it is typically incredibly easy to extract the oil - it isn't very deep down in the ground and it's easy to drill through the ground there. Therefore it's cheap to produce all that oil. That's very different than the Canadian oil sands, for instance, or deep water wells off the coast of Europe - those are all expensive places to drill. Oil prices have to be high to make it worthwhile to drill there but Saudi Arabia's oil is pretty much always easy to drill and with a nice profit margin for them.
It's estimated that the king has a personal fortune of $18 billion.
The Saudi royal family are many people who are all wealthy who together have an estimated fortune of $1 trillion. We do not know exactly how much each of them own but it is unlikely that any of them is very high on such lists. A lot of these lists exclude monarchs all together as their wealth and the wealth of the government they rule is often one and the same and it would therefore be an unfair comparison.
See, modern theories of economics break down when capitalism gives way to the older traditions of power that preceded it. How do you measure the wealth of a dictator? Saudi Arabia is worth trillions upon trillions, like most large countries. In theory, the House of Saud is led by Mohammed bin Salman controls all of this, making their personal wealth synonymous with that of Saudi Arabia as a whole. In practice, most of the wealth goes to regular government function, like infrastructure, defense, and social services. Only a small portion is actually used by the Saudi royals. So while I think that the Saudis certainly are 'on paper' likely trillionaires, by any real definition they are far from it. Just like Julius Caesar was not really the largest landowner in antiquity because for a time all of Egypt was his "personal property" which he in no way managed in any reasonable fashion, I think it's disingenuous to call the Saudis really the sole financial recipients of the state. Now, are they still likely the richest group of people on the planet? They certainly are a leading contender. But not quite by that much.
Governments:
Infographic: The World's Monarchies
This chart shows countries where a monarch is head of state.
www.statista.com
(The king of Cambodia is probably rhe poorest monarch in the world but still makes $1 million USD a year).
True, these are Forbes numbers which do not include "public life" made fortunes which include Royalty (Kings, Queens, Sultans, …) and presidents (or equivalent). For that you should peak the world dictatorships followed by the most corrupt countries and communist countries and look to their leaders and ex-leaders.
Generally governments are excluded from such lists. Is Joe Biden one of the wealthiest people in the world because he controls the United States? The Saudi royal family is a monarchy that controls Saudi Arabia so their wealth is the wealth of the country. Distinguishing personal wealth from government budget is impossible.
A lot of the British Royal Family's wealth is in its art collection.
Lists like that tends to exclude dictators and other people where the title is why they have the money. What is private property and what is the property of the government is often mixed together? I can't find that stated on Forbes's own website, I am likely missing it. But you can find it stated about the Forbes list on other websites.
Royalty are not excluded from the Forbes billionaire list if that's what you're talking about and there are 4 royals from the United Arab Emirates on that list. Saudi Royals have also made that list in the past. They're not currently on that list because they're not worth very much. The wealth of the Saudi Royal family comes from its ownership of ARAMCO, which is the state oil company in Saudi Arabia. The $1 trillion figure that you saw for their wealth is sort of an internet pseudoscience thing based on ARAMCO's official valuation of ~$2 trillion. If ARAMCO is worth that much then, yes, the Saudi Royal family is worth $1 trillion. But ARAMCO isn't worth anywhere near that. ARAMCO is technically a "publicly traded" company, but only 5% of the company is publicly owned. That 5% of the available stock is only traded on the Saudi stock exchange. Only a handful of people are allowed to trade on the Saudi stock exchange and the amount of ARAMCO stock traded on a daily basis is usually less than $500. That means that the price that the stock trades for is fake - its essentially a show put on by the Saudi Royal family. ARAMCO is difficult to value because its revenues are about 6 times higher than the next largest oil company in the world while its costs are technically lower. That is, it costs ARAMCO almost nothing to pull oil out of the ground. The issue is that even though ARAMCO is privately owned by the Saudi Royal family, most of its revenue is taken by the Saudi government to allow the country to function. When you look at it from that perspective, ARAMCO is actually operating at a fairly large loss. It can't do anything to reduce those "costs" because if it stops supporting the Saudi government then the country will collapse. Given that bizarre situation, no one really believes that ARAMCO is worth very much and therefore, the Saudi royal family doesn't have the kind of wealth that would be suggested given ARAMCO's official valuation.
Say if a Saudi prince owned a pice of highway that would be counted towards his fortune, however its value is mostly that when people use this highway they increase the general productivity meaning the prince can collect more taxes. That is something that Elon Musk or Jeff Besos does not have the ability to do. The exception to this was the Sultan of Brunei who appeared in many lists of the richest people with an estimated wealth of $20 billion. This inclusion was controversial as it was hard to say which
monarchs to include and which to exclude. So when Bill Gates and several other people passed his wealth he was dropped from such lists.
These billionaires are not even comparable to what some other people not listed here hold.
We know from the stories surrounding Putin's wealth ($200-$500 billion) and that of the Egyptian ex-dictator ($70-$700 billion) that powerful and wealthy men have ways to keep their real wealth secret. These are not the real numbers. I am actually referring to the Anglo-Saxon banking dynasties that reside in the city of London and the east coast. The people that invented Cayman Islands shell company systems and know exactly how to hide wealth. Not only those people but also Chinese, Indian business men. Russian oligarchs. These people have gigantic hidden riches.
What's the real net worth of Kim Jong un? It shows $5 billion net worth since 2013. Some say $1 trillion. This data is yet to change and with no available details or sources. It's hard to quantify. His net worth is skimming off the top of the DPRK. All the top shelf liquor and food he consumes comes from the coffers of the state. He's certainly quite wealthy, even by international standards, but the North Korean economy is fairly isolated compared to the global economy, making it challenging to place an exact value on his assets. What's the value of a mansion in North Korea? I could argue in some sense it's not worth anything since there's not exactly a market to sell it. Of course that's not exactly true in it does have some intrinsic value. But could explain why we can't say what his exact net worth is. He also wouldn't necessarily be able to convert all of his wealth to another country's currency, so it's hard to say what his net worth is compared to other billionaires.
Room 39, also known as Bureau 39, is a secretive organization in North Korea, allegedly involved in illicit activities to generate foreign currency for the country's leadership and their slush funds. It is believed to be responsible for a range of operations, including counterfeiting, drug trafficking, and international fraud. Possibly even running a North Korean restaurant chain with stores outside the country. Room 39's activities are crucial for maintaining the financial stability and luxury of North Korea's elite.
Room 39 - Wikipedia
Pyongyang (restaurant chain) - Wikipedia
Banking Clans:
But outside of someone that is a political or military leader, i.e. Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Kim Jong-un, ect. - government residence not owned by Putin, but on the balance sheet of the state), the royal family is another house that is extremely wealthy along with the Rockefellers, Rothschilds. The problem is they've spread the wealth between many individuals, all of them are super rich but not anywhere near as rich as a person would have been if all the wealth went to them. The wealth between family members in the house of Saud is in name only. Anytime Mohammad Bin Salman wants he can take all of his family's cash which he has.
What sources are there on the Rothschilds still being ultra-rich? Most historical wealth has evaporated or has been seized or has otherwise left them. They're still in business and are by no means poor. But the only media I have seen claiming they are the richest and most powerful group on the planet are exaggerating at best and usually just shady and untrustworthy. I used to work just around the corner from their investment offices (and know someone who works there); it's literally their own personal mini sky scraper in the middle of the City of London.
They're still very much very, very rich. Trump has many skyscapers. I'd say owning a skyscraper is barely any proof of being the richest group of people on the planet. It just means they're still rich. Or have large loans. Most buildings where the tower has his name, he gets royalty by owner of said building. Their headquarters is a skyscraper:
New Court - Wikipedia
The Rothschilds are like a private Goldman Sachs though, with some of their family firms being public or at least having known shareholders. The difference from a place like Goldman is that the family controls it, so I can see where the fear comes from. That, and the fact that they made all of their money doing exactly what conspiracy theorists fear. They played all sides of the Napoleonic wars and bought up all British bonds a few hours before the news of the victory at Waterloo broke, just to name one example. It was a Rothschild in London that financed the sale of the Louisiana purchase so that Napoleon could get some cash to keep fighting the English.
The Rothschilds aren't a family like you'd think
of one (a grandparent, some aunts and uncles
and cousins etc) but much more of a clan, with branches all over Europe. Each of the major branches have businesses and investments worth many billions; the main reason we don't know how wealthy they are is because of how spread out they are, but when you see the number of large firms they have that still exist it would be impossible for them, as a family, not to have wealth in the many many billions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family for some background info.
Rockefeller's wealth amounted to 1/65 of the year's GNP or almost 3% of US GDP that year at the time of his death.
But America (like most of the world) was a lot poorer in 1913 than it was in 2007 or now.
Adjusting for inflation $900 million in 1913 would "only" be $19 billion in 2007 or over $25 billion now.
It's unclear how much of it is "left". It's even possible, with the passing of David Rockefeller in 2017, that none of his descendants are billionaires in their own right. Though they certainly control at least several billion dollars jointly through their trusts.
Gerald R. Ford's pick for VP Nelson Rockafeller, JD Sr.'s grandson.
Senator: What is your net worth?
JDR: I don't know.
Senator: I beg your pardon?
JDR: I have no idea.
Senator: What do you mean? How can you have no idea?
JDR: I mean that I have no idea; there's enough money that my household bills are paid, including my staff and all my taxes, and I know I have enough to live on, even if I do so regardless of how extravagant it might be.
Senator: Can you give us an estimate within a few…million dollars?
JDR: If you give me 90 days I can get an approximation as of a specific date.
Senator: It'll take that long?
JDR: I could go for a much more specific amount with more time, but no one in my family has ever been asked that question.
Gates:
The richest man in modern times is not Putin, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. It's Bill Gates - he gave most of his shares to hai charity. So his current net worth is about $150 billion. But he used to own and he charitably gave away his 56% in Microsoft. If he hadn't given those shares to charity - Microsoft is worth $2.7 trillion, he's worth $1.3 trillion.
Criminals:
Bruce Bagley, a now 78-year old University of Miami professor and chair of international studies, estimated El Chapo's net worth between $2-4 billion (he was actually charged with money laundering in 2019. He pleaded guilty to helping to launder $2.5 million in exchange for a $250,000 payment and was sentenced to six months in prison).
Obviously he wasn't filling taxes so it's difficult to accurately assess. In 2012 Business Insider reported his net worth at $1.3 billion.
Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha - $5.65 billion, he was one of the leaders of the Medellin Cartel and was actually included in Forbes' billionaires list in 1988. He was killed in 1989.
Khun Sa - $5 billion, born Chang Chi-fu in 1933, dubbed the "Opium King," was a notorious drug lord in Southeast Asia, particularly active in the Golden Triangle area. Of Chinese and Shan descent, he rose to power in the 1960s by forming his own militia and controlling a large portion of the global opium trade. He used his drug profits to fund an insurgency for the independence of the Shan State in Myanmar. The American ambassador to Thailand called him "the worst enemy the world has." He "surrendered" to the Burmese government in 1996, disbanding his army and moving to Yangon with his wealth and mistresses where he engaged in "legitimate" business projects, especially mining and construction. He died in 2007 at the age of 73. Today, his children are prominent businesspeople in Myanmar.
Misc.:
The Pritzker family is one of the wealthiest families in the United States (staying in the top 10 of Forbes magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the magazine began such listings in 1982).
| Rank | Name | Net worth |
|---|---|---|
| Total | $43.1 billion | |
| 409 | Thomas Pritzker | $6.7 billion |
| 477 | Karen Pritzker | $6.1 billion |
| 597 | Jean (Gigi) Pritzker | $5.1 billion |
| 871 | Anthony Pritzker | $3.7 billion |
| 871 | Penny Pritzker | $3.7 billion |
| 920 | J. B. Pritzker | $3.5 billion |
| 1238 | John Pritzker | $2.7 billion |
| 1286 | Daniel Pritzker | $2.6 billion |
| 1496 | Jennifer Pritzker | $2.2 billion |
| 1623 | Linda Pritzker | $2 billion |
| 1851 | Matthew Pritzker | $1.7 billion |
| 1945 | Nicholas J. Pritzker | $1.6 billion |
| 2046 | Liesel Pritzker Simmons | $1.5 billion |
John D. Rockefeller: The Richest Man in the World - Case - Faculty & Research - Harvard Business School
John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) Wealth: 1.53% of the U.S. economy.* America's first billionaire -- thanks to oil. 2 Cornelia Vanderbilt (1794-1877) Wealth: 1.15% of the U.S.economy. Built an impressive empire of steamboats and railroads. 3 John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) Wealth: 0.93% of the U.S. economy. His initial fortune came from the fur trade, then later in New York real estate. 4 Stephen Girard (1750-1831) Wealth: 0.67% of the U.S. economy. Made his money in shipping and later was the largest investor in the First Bank of the United States. 5 Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) Wealth: 0.60% of the U.S. economy. Started by building iron bridges for the railroads, then cashed in with steel. 6 Bill Gates (1955-) Wealth: 0.58% of the U.S. economy. King of the operating system; emperor of software. 7 Alexander Turney Stewart (1803-1876) Wealth: 0.56% of the U.S. economy.
Founded the first department store in the United States. 8 Frederick Weyerhaeuser (1834-1914) Wealth: 0.55% of the U.S. economy. Built an empire on America's insatiable appetite for timber.
OTHER TECH TITANS IN THE TOP 100 38 Paul Allen (1953-) Wealth: 0.20% of the U.S. economy. The Microsoft cofounder ranks just after James J. Hill (1838-1916), who built an empire of railroads and towns in the Northwest, and just before Elias Hasket Derby (1739-1799), who made his fortune during the Revolutionary War in privateering and trade. Derby may have been America's first millionaire.61 Steve Ballmer (1956-) Wealth: 0.13% of the U.S. economy.
Microsoft's key tactician ranks after George Washington (1732-1799), who married one of the wealthiest widows in the nation, and before Anthony N. Brady (1834-1913), who consolidated New York transit systems and utilities.66 Michael Dell (1965-) Wealth: 0.12% of the U.S. economy. The Dell Computer founder ranks just after George Pullman (1831-1897), who came up with the idea of sleeping cars in trains, and just before Robert Wood Johnson Jr. (1893-1968), who started Johnson & Johnson. 90 Larry Ellison (1944-) Wealth: 0.07% of the U.S. economy. The Oracle CEO ranks before Captain Robert Dollar (1844-1932), who founded what would become the American President shipping line, and after Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), whose wealth came from the purchase of land. *Wealth figures calculated by dividing a person's total wealth by America's GNP at the time of the person's death, or if the person is still alive, by 1997 GNP figure. Rankings and historical information from The Wealthy 100 by Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther (Carol Publishing Group, 1996). Ranking of non-tech figures limited to only those listed in The Wealthy 100. The wealth calculated from the most recent publicly available SEC filings. Share price as of 5/21/98.
- Forbes, 1998
There have been trillionaires already… in other countries currencies. Like Zimbabwe at one point for example.
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