2 Vanderbilt’s are a charm for the top 10 … surprised not to see Sam Walton or Bill Gates. It’s odd that old school people could rack up so many BILLION when money was worth much less.
I reply:
Actually, money was worth a lot MORE back then. $1 would buy a lot more stuff than $1 today. That's why you needed a lot fewer dollars to be a larger fraction of the country's GDP. Today's billionaires have a lot of dollars, but they're not on the list because the dollars are worth less (due to currency manipulation by the government and Federal Reserve). The numbers on the list are adjusted to 2007 dollars, so back in their time, they didn't have billions, but rather millions.
Re: Rich people in China
They probably exist, but it's probably much harder to tell because the country was Communist.
2 Vanderbilt’s are a charm for the top 10 … surprised not to see Sam Walton or Bill Gates. It’s odd that old school people could rack up so many BILLION when money was worth much less.
I reply:
Actually, money was worth a lot MORE back then. $1 would buy a lot more stuff than $1 today. That's why you needed a lot fewer dollars to be a larger fraction of the country's GDP. Today's billionaires have a lot of dollars, but they're not on the list because the dollars are worth less (due to currency manipulation by the government and Federal Reserve). The numbers on the list are adjusted to 2007 dollars, so back in their time, they didn't have billions, but rather millions.
Re: Rich people in China
They probably exist, but it's probably much harder to tell because the country was Communist.