Are billionaires rich enough yet?

[Swammerdami]

I perused the Forbes List of Billionaires for 2022; and will report on some names that caught my eye.

In 1901 Andrew Carnegie scoffed when J.P. Morgan showed up at his home saying a consortium wanted to buy the Carnegie Steel Company. Andrew was only 65 years old and not ready to retire. But he changed his mind when he looked at the check Morgan presented to him for almost half a billion dollars. Becoming the very richest man in all the world (excepting autocrats like the Czar of Russia) probably fulfilled his adolescent dream!

Allowing for inflation, that $400+ million represents less than $8 billion in today's money, and would be barely enough to put Carnegie in today's Top 300.

Missing from the 2022 list is the surname Carnegie of course but there are also ZERO Rockefellers, zero Vanderbilts, nor any of the fabled wealthy families of yore. There was only one Rothschild, but that was Jeff Rothschild co-founder of Facebook who descends from a completely different family than the famous banking family that Controls the World™. No Hiltons, but Paris Hilton's old buddy Kim Kardashian is a billionaire as is her beau Kanye West.

Only one of the billionaires is a teenager; that would be Kevin David Lehmann who inherited from his father. (Germany's tax laws may be different from the U.S.'s as Kevin's father is still living.)

There are two self-made men in their 30's worth $50 billion or more. These are Zuckerberg, and Zhang Yiming who founded Tiktok. But Sam Bankman-Fried, a crypto-currency king aged only 30 has $24 billion so may be poised to overtake the other young multi-billionaires.

Fortunes get split up when the founder leaves two or more children, of course. The Waltons have to make due with $66 billion each but would blow Elon Musk out of the #1 slot if they pooled their wealth. Similarly Charles Koch would be in the #5 slot if his wealth were combined with that of his brother's widow Julia. (Julia met David on a blind date about which she told a friend "I'm glad I met that man because now I know I never want to go out with him." Evidently something changed her mind.)

Eight of the world's ten richest men are Americans, all except Warren Buffett being tech kings. The two non-Americans are France's Bernard Arnault (LVMH) and Mukesh Ambani.

Mukesh Ambani (#10) is the richest Indian with $91 billion, but barely nosed out his countryman Gautam Adani (#11, $90 billion). Ambani has a younger brother Anil who was MUCH richer than Mukesh for a while but lost a supposed $140 billion in the biggest riches-to-rags story ever. He was a flamboyant playboy while Mukesh is more conservative. But "conservative" might not be the word that comes to mind when you hear about Mukesh's $2.6 billion home,  Antilia (building)

Antilia is a private residence in the billionaires row of Mumbai, India, named after the mythical island Antillia. It is the residence of the Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani and his family, who moved into it in 2012. The skyscraper-mansion is one of the world's largest and most elaborate private homes, at 27 stories, 173 metres (568 ft) tall, over 37,000 square metres (400,000 sq ft), and with amenities such as three helipads, a 168-car garage, a ballroom, 9 high speed elevators, a 50-seat theatre, terrace gardens, swimming pool, spa, health centre, a temple, and a snow room that spits out snowflakes from the walls.

Collectively the billionaires were worth over $13 trillion in 2021, but several rich Russians have suffered recently and the billionaires' club is worth just $12.7 trillion now. The median billionaire has about $2.3 billion while the mean is about $4.8 billion. Stratification continues even at this level: the richest 10% of the billionaires have 50% of total billionaire wealth.

Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott is at #30 with $44 billion; that's only enough to make her 4th-richest woman. (Ahead of her are Françoise Bettencourt Meyers of L'Oréal, Sam Walton's daughter Alice, and afore-mentioned Julia Koch. Bloomberg shows Françoise Bettencourt as worth $95 billion, but Forbes thinks she's making do with just $75 billion.)

Forbes shows 27 billionaires in Thailand but omits His Majesty, whose personal wealth is surely in 11 digits. Vladimir Putin has been called "the richest man in the world" but is also missing from Forbes' list.


For me the most interesting billionaire was a man I'd never heard of:  Joshua Kushner, a "venture capitalist" (and son of a billionaire) worth $2 billion (though missing from Forbes' 2021 list). Kushner's first company collapsed under allegations of fraud and piracy; and his sweetheart Covid contract from his brother Jared, Trump's Czar of the Pandemic, fell through when The Atlantic did an expose. Despite these setbacks he somehow clawed his way to $2 billion. Wikipedia gives an idea of his money-making genius:

Kushner's JK2 [Westminster Management, owned 50% each by Josh and his brother Jared] was also featured in an episode of Netflix's Dirty Money series titled "Slumlord Millionaire." The episode was based on an exposé from ProPublica accusing the company of abusing tenants rights, leaving homes in disrepair, humiliating late-paying renters and suing mostly poor immigrants to garnish their wages calling them a "tier-1 predator".

During the COVID-19 pandemic, JK2 filed a significant number of lawsuits against tenants for debt collection and eviction, despite an eviction moratorium being in place.

Are billionaires rich enough yet?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The justification of the wealth was that it was in theory only, but Musk disproved that with his Twitter run. Also, there needs to be a correction, $480 million in 1901 is worth about $16 billion today. It seems absurd that Carnegie's empire was purchased for a fraction of what Musk is trying to pay for Twitter.

 

[Elixir]

that is a rant for another day.

… but you can watch “Don’t Look Up” today!

 

[atrib]

that is a rant for another day.

… but you can watch “Don’t Look Up” today!

I liked Don't Look Up. Cloaked in a heavy veneer of satire as it is, there is kernel of truth to the movie that is hard to ignore.

 

[Politesse]

Eat them.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Eat them.

Fat cats.

They're not fat. They're well marbled.

 

[TV and credit cards]

that is a rant for another day.

… but you can watch “Don’t Look Up” today!

I liked Don't Look Up. Cloaked in a heavy veneer of satire as it is, there is kernel of truth to the movie that is hard to ignore.

Eat them.

Just deserts.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Sounds kind of sandy.

 

[Swammerdami]

Had other Infidels even heard of Joshua Trump? I hadn't. But I am not surprised to see that he seems to have gotten wealthy via fraud and mean greed like the rest of family, and that of his sister-in-law.

Also, there needs to be a correction, $480 million in 1901 is worth about $16 billion today. It seems absurd that Carnegie's empire was purchased for a fraction of what Musk is trying to pay for Twitter.

Inflation multiplier is ambiguous. For starters, are we talking wages or prices? A quick Google shows this:

• Butter was 8 times as expensive in 1990 as in 1900.
• Eggs were 5.3 times as expensive in 1990 as in 1900.
• A bicycle was 6.3 times as expensive in 1990 as in 1900.

2022 prices are higher than 1990 but not by much. These multipliers are MUCH less than either the 16 multiplier I used or your 33 multiplier.
In any event, I didn't cherry-pick. I started with

During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $5.5 billion in 2021)

and confirmed this multiplier with an on-line table I downloaded years ago.

 

[Tigers!]

The justification of the wealth was that it was in theory only, but Musk disproved that with his Twitter run. Also, there needs to be a correction, $480 million in 1901 is worth about $16 billion today. It seems absurd that Carnegie's empire was purchased for a fraction of what Musk is trying to pay for Twitter.

At least Carnegie's empire was producing things of use and value. Twitter consumes much but produces frightfully little that is useful. The absurdity is so apparent as you note.

 

[Derec]

And this will be a very exclusive club with members who have the billions today to fund research into space travel, which will effectively give them a monopoly in this field. But that is a rant for another day.

If you risk your money on a speculative investment, should you not get to reap any rewards?

 

[zorq]

If you risk your money on a speculative investment, should you not get to reap any rewards?

If you see an opinion you think you disagree with should you NOT propose a false dichotomy?

Or do you really think that total wealth distribution and monopolies are the only two options?

Even if those were the only two options, wouldn't it be grand to have a discussion that didn't devolve into whataboutism? Can't we mention that monopolies have problems without someone telling us how bad communism is?

 

[Derec]

If you see an opinion you think you disagree with should you NOT propose a false dichotomy?

I was just saying that if you invest money into a business, and it makes a profit, you should be entitled to make money off it.

Or do you really think that total wealth distribution and monopolies are the only two options?

I do not think a monopoly is a realistic danger here. There are many asteroids, and if asteroid mining were to take off in 50 years, there is plenty of action for several companies.
I do not even think Elixir meant a literal monopoly. I think he meant that companies - several, so not a monopoly - would dominate the market, because they have the necessary capital to invest.

Can't we mention that monopolies have problems without someone telling us how bad communism is?

I did not mention communism.

 

[Jayjay]

I don't think there is "rich enough". But there is such a thing as "too rich", which is when there is a group of people so rich, that they can and do subvert the state in a permanent way and turn it into an autocracy.

Some would say that point is reached already, I don't think it is (in USA or most of Europe anyway).

 

[Swammerdami]

If you risk your money on a speculative investment, should you not get to reap any rewards?

If you see an opinion you think you disagree with should you NOT propose a false dichotomy?

Or do you really think that total wealth distribution and monopolies are the only two options?

Even if those were the only two options, wouldn't it be grand to have a discussion that didn't devolve into whataboutism? Can't we mention that monopolies have problems without someone telling us how bad communism is?

I really liked this response!

While Derec often seems almost reasonable, many right-wingers cannot resist exaggeration and false dichotomy. Advocate a tax hike from 30% to 32% and the right-winger will retort that billionaires will stop serving humanity when you confiscate all their wealth. Propose a 15% hike to minimum wage; and hear that all the minimum wage workers will be laid off and, anyway, ALL prices will rise 15% to compensate!

One hilarity is consistent: If a right-winger writes "It's just Econ 101" you can be sure his next sentence will be so stupid as to prove he failed Econ 101 if he ever took it!

 

[Politesse]

I don't think there is "rich enough". But there is such a thing as "too rich", which is when there is a group of people so rich, that they can and do subvert the state in a permanent way and turn it into an autocracy.

Some would say that point is reached already, I don't think it is (in USA or most of Europe anyway).

What's your benchmark?

 

[atrib]

And this will be a very exclusive club with members who have the billions today to fund research into space travel, which will effectively give them a monopoly in this field. But that is a rant for another day.

If you risk your money on a speculative investment, should you not get to reap any rewards?

Yes, you should. I don't have a problem with people reaping the rewards of their skills, hard work and vision. But to believe that a single human being has provided services worth 300 billion dollars is absurd.

 

[Jayjay]

I don't think there is "rich enough". But there is such a thing as "too rich", which is when there is a group of people so rich, that they can and do subvert the state in a permanent way and turn it into an autocracy.

Some would say that point is reached already, I don't think it is (in USA or most of Europe anyway).

What's your benchmark?

Trump got voted out.

 

[Politesse]

So if he buys his way back in, that will be sufficient proof of plutocracy?

 

[Bomb#20]

Eat them.

Just deserts.

The world sucks because of a powerful parasitical minority, and the solution to our problems is to get rid of that minority -- sure sign of a sane ideology.