How Rich People Get Rich

[hfojvt]

13. so what if there are a few people who are even richer?

Does that somehow make $16 million "NOT rich"?

I don't buy that for a second.

And nobody is worth even one trillion. According to Forbes, the richest man in America, William Gates is only worth $59 billion, and the 2nd richest, Warren Buffet, is worth $39 billion and 3rd, Harlan Ellison, is worth $33 billion, then come my fake uncles David and Charlie at $25 billion.

The only Rockefeller is David, 159th with $2.5 billion, and there are no Rothschilds in the top 400.

What happened to their money? Perhaps inflation, perhaps inheritance. There are 4 Waltons in the top 15. Their collective net worth, which once belonged to just Sammy, is $87 billion. That would make Sammo first. Yet divided they are 6th, 9th, 10th and 11th. Let that wealth be divided over two more generations and they will fall out of the top 100.

Funny thing about $59 billion, is that it is not all that much. There are, after all, 110 million+ households in the United States. In 2002, 8.5% of them had a net worth between $25,000 and $50,000. Taking the bottom value of $25,000 times .085 times 110 million gives me $233,750 million. Or $233.75 billion - at the least. Collectively, even that small, and fairly poor, group has 4 times as much wealth as Bill Gates.