\*Ten richest people who are required to report on their earnings/wealth
[(Saudi princes and many/most European royal families right now)](https://c.tenor.com/tEEjB0RnxyAAAAAM/puppet-awkward.gif)
Basically royal families and the like who aren't required to disclose income/wealth.
The Saudi royal family is ridiculously rich, I've seen figures putting Putin personnel wealth at £700 billion. Even if that's an overestimate, it still demonstrates his personnel wealth is vastly higher than they reasonably should be for a politician.
Their SWF is "only" 580B$, and while they do have some untapped opportunities (like, IDK, selling the road systems to a third party?) I think that should be ignored, same as you wouldn't say some guy with just a business idea is worth anything, until they start actually doing it.
Weirdly, I just realized KSA has similar amounts of foreign cash as they do in investments - their foreign currency reserves are approaching 581B$. It makes sense for an exporter to have large reserves, but I never realized just how large.
>I think that should be ignored, same as you wouldn't say some guy with just a business idea is worth anything, until they start actually doing it.
Oh boy, wait until you hear about Elon Musk...
Considering they actually own the majority of Saudi Aramco... they are filthy rich.
Only 1.5% of Saudi Aramco's shares are public. This raised $25.6 billion at the IPO. Not to mention that Aramco has just released the highest profit earnings in history - A $48.4bn quarterly profit. Even though only 1.5% of shares on the public market - this means they have a market capitalisation of $1.4 Trillion.
That means the House of Saud (essentially the head of the Saudi state) own the rest of it. The royals therefore have control over a $1.4 Trillion asset. That's equivalent to the Norwegian oil fund.
That means King Salman (The guy who ordered the assassination of the journalist in Turkey) Is worth more than the top 10 richest people on earth combined.
It's fascinating. Demonstrates how real wealth is hidden from public view.
Kin Salman is 86 years old and is rumoured to have Alzheimer's. His son and heir - Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman runs the country and ordered the hit.
He's human. The irony is more fundamental in that one human was given that much power over the collective work of humans in the first place. That slavery or pseudo-slavery via mere inequality in power is essentially all of human history. We barely even acknowledge this as it's still too real. Perhaps that's what's truly ironic, as Saudi Arabia is still a highly valued trading partner and that's all that ultimately matters to other powerful nations despite the propaganda.
Years ago there was a massive cyber attack on windows computers owned by Saudi Aramco, the Saudi statr oil company. It coordinated a disk encryption on Ramadan when the offices were skeleton crews.
Instead of ordering a wipe and reinstall in order to get back up and running they did two things. They just blindly filled orders of oil and then flew the fleet of aircraft to Thailand and singlehandedly bought the entire world supply of new hard disks to get back up and running on the chance they could recover data
They are rich af
I think that the notion of personal wealth is meaningless for dictators like the Saudis or Putin. The entire state's budget is literally at their disposal.
I'm gonna save you some work.
[Mohammed Bin Salman](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/04/mohammed-bin-salman-saudi-arabia-palace-interview/622822/) is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He is relatively young but has already proven himself to rule with an iron fist (and occasionally have journalists cut into pieces).
He has a degree in Islamic Law and has used his intimate knowledge of Islam to conclude that Islam is whatever he says it is. He has opened up parts of the country but also locked up anybody who has dissented. Oh and he's breaking jailed extremists' spirits through corporate banality.
For all intents and purposes, he is Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia has a GDP of 700 billion dollars (not a direct parallel but should give you a ballpark).
^(The\* State or it'd be d'état, like in coup d'état.)
However, a quick search shows that he never said this. There is no source for it. Historians do agree that it *embodies* absolutism and the absolute monarchies of the time.
He did state something on his deathbed that was contrary to this false quote: "Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours." or ""I depart, but the State shall always remain."
Haha, well context is key. Banking families, sovereign wealth families, chaebol families, "hidden" wealth are all easy guesses. You could also tag popular opinions like Mohammad bin Salman, Putin, Rothschilds, Sassoons, Samsung family members... A lot of it is naturally unverified and highly speculative, but there is definitely investigative journalism into all of it. Jewish banking families and alleged Papal royalty families if you want to go super conspiratorial. British royal family is always another interesting rabbit hole. Whenever you get to such extreme amounts of wealth though, you have to consider how liquid, how fungible, and how real they are. Elon Musk was supposedly worth more than the GDP of Greece, but isn't Tesla a bit overvalued?
Edit: I agree there are problems with each and any of the people i listed. We're dealing with incalculable wealth though. When you (or the entity you control) is worth more than anything that could be feasibly spent or physically possessed... It's all really intangible at a certain point, so it very much relies on how much everyone else believes.
>Elon Musk was supposedly worth more than the GDP of Greece,
That's comparing income (GDP) to wealth. United Kingdom, for example, has more assets than all billionaires combined.
Read up in how much money MBS and MBZ control through their sovereign wealth funds. It's multiple trillions that they essential solely control, though it isn't technically "net worth".
I'm sure European royalty is in a similar boat.
I googled and the gdp of saudi arabia is 700 billion while russia is 1.48 trillion.
So even if it's hard to know how large a part each dictator controls, it is not unlikely that Putin could accumulate more than saudi royalty.
Almost no EU royalty is worth a billion or more, and none of them would reach anywhere close to this list. EU Royalty aren't as rich as most people probably think they are. Not even the Queen of England is a billionaire.
The Crown Estate is the biggest estate owner in all of the world a.k.a the Royal institution with it's head being Elizabeth. To argue that she isn't even a billionaire is crazy talk. She owns so many historical places, buildings and artifacts, that never have been valued aswell, it's insane. Think it's hard to put a number on their wealth but i wouldnt be suprised if it exceeds the norwegian oilfund's evaluation.
E: just their jewelery worth a couple billions.
The Crown Estate belongs to the reigning monarch 'in right of The Crown', that is, it is owned by the monarch for the duration of their reign, by virtue of their accession to the throne. But it is not the private property of the monarch - it cannot be sold by the monarch, nor do revenues from it belong to the monarch.
https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/resources/faqs/
Edit: Source
Former Spanish king Juan Carlos had a estimated fortune of 2.000.000.000€.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.es/11-datos-saber-equivale-fortuna-rey-juan-carlos-i-817165
Out king had a LOT of undeclared things, he had to flee Spain and was living in the middle east for some years because he got in fiscal troubles for that.
We don't call that a billion, but in english it is two billions.
TBF, have you seen the crown prince/princesses? All good looking folks, plus (asides from the self-proclaimed clairvoyant) they seem mostly normal for royalty.
To be fair, widespread democracy and general world stability (at least compared to pre-WWII) is *extremely* new and unprecedented on the scale of human history. We’re only what, 5 or so generations from the halfway point between the birth of America and the present day?
If you have grandparents that were born in 1940, they’ve lived through 1/3 the life of America thus far
Norwegians own their oil collectively as a nation (as opposed to private companies), so this is money that is spent on public education, welfare etc. www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/departementene/nfd/bilder/eierskap/s.-26-27-redusert-e.jpg
We were lucky that the oil reserves were found offshore, so nobody else really owned the ground. When minerals has been found in the mountains in the past, some owner has made the profits off that. But they would still pay a shitton of taxes of course.
> We were lucky that the oil reserves were found offshore, so nobody else really owned the ground.
Denmark has entered the chat and would like to fight you.
Like any other company would, it's just that these companies pay their dividends to the treasury and/or invest it in public infrastructure and amenities.
Oh, and no, certainly not all minerals.
The Government Pension Fund Global, also known as the Oil Fund, was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector.
Imagine having so much liquid gold coming out of the ground you don't have to fight for it. If Alaska was its own country it would be the same boat given their oil per capita. They already do have a payment to their residents.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/alaska/articles/2021-10-14/alaskans-get-annual-boost-of-free-money-from-oil-wealth
The Norwegians fund is long term though, they put the revenues they make from oil into a massive fund that essentially acts like a pension for the entire country.
The government cannot by law to any money out of this fund directly only use the revenue the fund itself generates, which they use to greatly subsides all of Norway's public services.
This way the money doesn't rely on the price of oil and will be there long after, the oil runs out.
Just to add to the previous comment, each Norwegian has about $300,000 in the fund. They cannot withdraw it of course but this money funds a variety of social programs and allows the government to offer generous social security.
The investments that the fund makes are all diversified. Because the money came from oil, they will not invest in oil or Norwegian companies. The idea is that if oil or the Norwegian economy goes through a particularly bad time, the fund will remain unscathed.
This is such a funny one, and just shows how weird things are.
He is known for buying/investing in other companies. But even this he does through HIS company, Berkshire.
But its weirder still. He didn't start Berkshire. It did used to do something else, it was just an early acquisition He now uses as his main holding company.
So weird to me man.
Even funnier is the fact that he bought it out of spite after the dude who ran it asked to buy back his shares for 11 1/2 dollars per, but tried to swindle Buffett for 11 3/8 dollars per share instead.
Buffett has gone on record to say that buying Berkshire Hathaway was the worst investment decision he's ever made.
"Berkshire Hathaway is an American multinational conglomerate holding company."
It's definitely not a fund all though it can seem like one at times as it invests in multiple other companies sometimes without a controlling stake.
I was more concerned about geographical region. Being in San Jose in the late 90s must have been something.
But I also forget these are real places lol. Like I moved to CA last year and when someone told me they grew up in Palo Alto I was like "oh...I forget that's a real place. Where I'm from, we just use that as short hand for tech CEOs."
Hard to believe any drugs lords have more than $200 Billion. Yes they make truck loads of money (literally) every day but they usually have a lot of people to keep happy and don’t amass that much because most of it comes in as cash and can’t be cleaned efficiently enough. So they use the cash for their purchases, fill a few vaults, and then start spreading it around. Storing $200 Billion in mixed cash would take literal warehouses.
Here are the world fund rankings:
https://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankings/
Interestingly, the Bank of Japan is the only fund with a higher asset-to-GDP ratio than the US Federal Reserve. They also own over half of Japan’s public debt
It's a funny way to point out that the Japanese economy just works differently from other developed economies. And Argentina just shouldn't work but through fiscal and political intervention, centralized planning etc. they seem to be able to maintain a semi stable state of almost collapse that somehow manages to not trigger any popular revolts. (They had something like 50+% inflation in 2019)
I was listening to the David McWilliams podcast and he was saying that Argentinean workers just kind of have inflation priced into their salary negotiations now and that by and large people are getting pay rises as the months progress - which of course is feeding into a permanent state of inflation.
Are there studies that use Argentina as an example that 2% inflation is just a recommendation and not optimal since it seems that as long as it is constant and expected that the nominal number really doesn't matter?
It's actually really confusing and part of it is due to exchange rates. There are like 15 different kinds of dollars that Argentinean people operate, blue, black, soy, tourist, corn etc. A lot of higher paying jobs pay in some form USD equivalent, some weird split or other kind of arrangements. Lower paying jobs for not which is actually creating a broadening gulf in class divides at the moment.
I watched a video on it earlier this year. The inflation is so rapid they get paid, and spend all the money. They'll buy however much food and necessities they need, convert the rest to USD, and put it under their beds (commonly obv not always under their bed lol). I believe it said Argentina has the most either US bills or 100$ bills besides the US, so they obviously very commonly do it.
I think this was mainly because inflation was so rapid they could go to the store and a gallon of milk is $3.75 and 5 days later its $4.25.
Also the government exchange rate from Argentinian currency -> USD is a lot different than the actual rate. You'll get a lot more Argentine currency for your USD from the street rates, I think going off government rates even meals in Buenos Aires would be expensive but off actual rate it's pretty normal.
Oh and the main point really was just inflation is too high for young people to ever buy anything. Like you can't make a Argentine salary and pay for necessities and save up for a house, you'll just never get there because your money is worth so much less each year. So they probably have bad brain drain where their smart people all just leave and weakens their own economy.
I believe they kind of operate in both, as was common in eg Yugoslavia in the dying days. Get paid in one, convert it immediately then convert back as needed.
Developed ~ people are rich enough to get high
Undeveloped ~ people are not rich enough to get high
Argentina ~ Inflation is so high that people roll their blunts with old peso-bills
Japan ~ complicated central bank shit + old population (old people smoke less)
Still higher than large European countries like Spain or Italy, and comparable to Germany. So not an outlier by any means actually in terms of developed nations.
Higher rates of education -> higher rates of contraceptive usage -> lower birth rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate
He's pointing out that prior to WWII Japan was basically still a feudal agrarian society; and after WWII developed extremely quickly to become one of the leading economies of the world in half a century. Argentina on the other hand was poised to become a leader in South America prior to WWII, and was one of the wealthiest countries in the world at that time.
Tldr; Japan is rags to riches story; Argentina is a fall from grace story.
There are a group of economies that developed at roughly the same time. The US, Western Europe, etc.
There are nearly everyone else. They haven't developed yet.
And then we have the two really odd cases.
Japan started centuries behind but modernized and caught up in the 1970s. Japan speed ran the entire industrial revolution in ~100 years.
Argentina started on par, or even a head of some developed nations, but never stuck the landing. So they've been sitting in the same spot of "any decade now they'll be a developed economy" for 100 years.
Japan has little to no inflation. Salaries, the price of things etc. All have almost no fluctuation. And CEOs of big companies will take out ads in newspapers and the like to appologies for 10 cent increase on products.
They are very "patriotic" if you can call it that. Most capitalists in Japan will rather no make as much money, if it would hurt their national power. This can be atributed to being China's neighbour.
There is a standard way in which economies develop. It applies to all countries. Except the normal rules (as far as we can tell) seem not to apply to Argentina or Japan.
Argentina used to be a first world country, one of the richest and most developed on the planet. For decades it averaged 6% growth of GDP.
Today it is a shadow of its former self.
Japan used to have one of the smallest economies on the planet and very rapidly altered course to be one of the most important economies out there.
Argentina's fall from grace, and Japan's rags to riches story, seem to undermine traditional notions about macro-economics about what should be reasonably possible to a given country given their starting positions.
That's not why the Japanese example is unusual, Japan was never one of the 'smallest' economies. It was always one of the most populated areas on the Earth and a major trading hub. Remember, until the last couple hundred years Northern China was the economic powerhouse in the world, and there was a lot of trade going on. Japan was also quite important by the end of the 19th century.
The story of Japan is their meteoric rise, especially in the 70s and 80s, and how they were nearly able to compete with America. Then growth almost complete stopped, inflation almost completely stopped, and they've been stagnant for 25 years. Other 'similar' countries like South Korea, Germany and the UK have not experienced this.
No, this is a pension fund, and very much NOT the wealth of the government, nor the whole country. Also, you could pick a smaller, poorer country, like Burundi, and a single person from this list is several multitudes more than their GDP.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government\_Pension\_Fund\_of\_Norway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway)
[https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/government-budget-value#:\~:text=Government%20Budget%20Value%20in%20Norway,the%20second%20quarter%20of%202020](https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/government-budget-value#:~:text=Government%20Budget%20Value%20in%20Norway,the%20second%20quarter%20of%202020).
>No, this is a pension fund
Even though it's called the "Government Pension Fund Global", it's not actually a pension fund, it can be spent by the government on literally anything. Your point that the total wealth of the country or the government is much more than just this fund still stands though.
They're only allowed to spend 3% in a given year.
Its called a pension fund because it's purpose is to provide income for Norway once the oil revenue has ended, in the same way that a pension is to provide income for someone once they've retired and their salary has ended.
>They're only allowed to spend 3% in a given year.
That is actually more a guideline than a hard rule, in both 2020 and 2021 they withdrew more from the fund due to Covid.
>Its called a pension fund because it's purpose is to provide income for Norway once the oil revenue has ended, in the same way that a pension is to provide income for someone once they've retired and their salary has ended.
Sure, but from the name you would believe it's an actual pension fund, that is the money is allocated to pensions and pensions only, like [CalPERS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS) or [CPP Investment board](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPP_Investment_Board). The Norwegian Oil fund is a *sovereign wealth fund* and much more comparable to say [Abu Dhabi Investment Authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Dhabi_Investment_Authority) or Singapore's [GIC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIC_\(Singaporean_sovereign_wealth_fund\)).
If Canada had nationalized our resources and had a long term strategy we would be in a similar boat. It's pathetic the state of affairs we're in given the bounty of resources we have. 🤦♂️
100% correct. And on top of that…
- we collect ridiculously low royalties
- we subsidize the private oil industry via tax and direct handouts
- private oil companies shirk their cleanup responsibilities, taxpayers on the hook for that too
- taxpayers build and maintain highways to resource extract sites and facilities
- oh, and the best one… we suffer the health effects and environmental damage of poor private industry practices
Except Canada’s oil is basically the most expensive type to get out of the ground while norways is much cheaper. Canadian oil profits can never reach norways because of that, so Canada never had a chance to reach this type of fund.
Even if Canada didn’t get a national fund out of it, I remember years of Alberta giving ‘free’ money to citizens. They could have saved that for a rainy day, like say when the price of oil cratered and their extremely expensive oil became a massive stinking albatross around their necks and they desperately needed an alternative income source. Shoulda woulda coulda…alas.
Edit: as pointed out below, it was not years of payments but a one time payment of 400$. I was confused. Still a stupid way to blow more than a billion dollars imo.
I remember getting that cheque. I moved from BC to AB and was going to school. I couldn't believe that the province was handing out money to its citizens! A nice gift at 21 y/o.
Australia checking in: we let our mining companies (and foreign owned companies) take as much iron ore and coal as they like and we are thankful if any of them feel obliged to pay any tax. So much for royalties. One state (Western Australia) does collect some but nothing on what they could feasibly tax.
Hey, we tried getting them to pay tax in 2013... And then the mining lobby spent 3x the total election budget of EVERY SINGLE POLITICAL PARTY COMBINED on a smear campaign against the leading party.
Individually, we pay more in tax annually than mining companies that make billions in profits from our nation's resources. It's a disgrace.
Norway didnt *nationalize* its oil, it just invested the taxes it levies from it in a fund, instead of pissing it away like Canada did. Also Norway's oil is much, much easier to extract than Canada's.
Canada tried to nationalize its oil and it was every bit the disaster as anticipated.
As an Australian this makes me so envious
We've sold all our resources for cheap and have fuck all to show for it.. I wish our government was like yours
People obsess over the wealth of the individuals listed, but remember this-- they're the wealthiest "public" people. Their wealth is tied to the values of their public companies. There are actually individuals that are far wealthier, but are private and you'll never know how much money they have. There are also individuals that are royalty (or oligarchs like Putin) and have enough wealth to put Norway to shame. Like a Saudi oil prince, for example.
It's guessed that the Saudi royal family has well over a 1.4 trillion dollars. Which is way way way beyond what even the British royal family has. With that said the uks royal family likely doesn't give a shit.
It's impossible, along with the more modern billionaires we're also talking about people whose families made their wealth in medieval and colonial times. But whose assets have been hidden behind all kinds of opaque constructions where the living members get an allowance.
Things like the Dutch East India Trading company was valued at 7.9 trillion dollars in today's money, one of the reasons for its decline was too much money getting pulled out of the company, but that money ended up somewhere. Another much more recent example was Leopold II, who used Congo as his personal slave state and ended up leaving about 1 billion dollars to his mistress in 1909. And nobody knows where that money ended up.
The difference with a lot of new money is that they know better than to show it off. But you can be sure that quite a few families in Western Europe can compete with the richest of the rich.
It depends on who it is. Second or third generation wealth it's likely that 50% or so is within private investments. First generation tech billionaires earned most of their wealth through the holdings in a single public company.
Part of the problem with that question is that how do you even measure the wealth of someone who effectively owns a country? Putin can have basically anything in Russia that he wants without consideration to price. What is that worth in dollars?
The idea of handling 1300 billion anything is wild to me.
Like imagine being in an office and casually moving around that unfathomable amount of wealth with a signature or click of a mouse.
I hope everyone understands that yes Norway as a country is rich but just because that is the case right now, it doesn't mean most people who live here will make more money than other western countries. For example, engineers and tech workers can probably earn more in US than in Norway. Tax is really high here but I think yes most people will be able to afford all living necessities and can have a high quality of life.
There’s a saying here, “better to be poor in Europe, or rich in America”. And I think it holds true for the most part. Tech workers absolutely earn way more in the US than in Europe, and if you’re rich or upper middle class in the US life is pretty great. If you aren’t making as much and need parental leave, health insurance, and vacation time because your company won’t provide it, you might wanna live in Europe.
yeah this graphic just shows that the government of norway has a good saving strategy to build a fund of of the profits of its natural resourses.
my country could not do something like this because of the lack of resourses. but a lot of very poor countries actually could if they did not such corrupt structures in place.
Ye I know. Norway is looking out for it's future since they can't rely on oil forever.
Sorry to hear about your country. And yes sadly many countries have corrupt government.
The fund has a small stake in more than 9,000 companies worldwide, including the likes of Apple, Nestlé, Microsoft and Samsung. On average, the fund holds 1.3 percent of all of the world’s listed companie
The US has several funds like this. The problem is these are specific to individual states. Nearly all of these are oil states (Like Texas and Alaska). They are also apparently nowhere near as diverse as Norway's fund.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund
Funny. People here are focusing on the 10 people listed, but I haven't seen anything about the great move it was for the Norway gov to create Statoil and keep it a state run domestic industry that places profits directly in funds for public benefit. The way I understand it is Norway's oil fund is like a state provided 401k, but I think it's more focused on real property rather than stocks, and each Norwegian by right has claim to their share - usually seen as their social security
He has been donating as he goes.
He also pledged to give most of his wealth away to charity when he dies.
No one does the math of course - if he retained what he’s given, then how much would he have now? The comparison against the list would be interesting.
\*Ten richest people who are required to report on their earnings/wealth [(Saudi princes and many/most European royal families right now)](https://c.tenor.com/tEEjB0RnxyAAAAAM/puppet-awkward.gif)
Is there any lists I could read up on people who don't report but might be richer?
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There's dark-money rich, and then there's crime-boss sitting on enough nuclear weapons to destroy several planets-rich.
Navalny's documentary speculates that Putin might actually be the first trillionaire. Given all his assets, liquidity, investments, et al
>first trillionaire Navalny better hope Mansa Musa and Augustus don't hear him talking shit
Basically royal families and the like who aren't required to disclose income/wealth. The Saudi royal family is ridiculously rich, I've seen figures putting Putin personnel wealth at £700 billion. Even if that's an overestimate, it still demonstrates his personnel wealth is vastly higher than they reasonably should be for a politician.
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Nothing personnel, kid
Personnelly, this affends me.
Teleports behind you
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The national treasury and assets of all of Saudi Arabia are technically owned by the house of Saud and can be utilized however they wish.
Their SWF is "only" 580B$, and while they do have some untapped opportunities (like, IDK, selling the road systems to a third party?) I think that should be ignored, same as you wouldn't say some guy with just a business idea is worth anything, until they start actually doing it. Weirdly, I just realized KSA has similar amounts of foreign cash as they do in investments - their foreign currency reserves are approaching 581B$. It makes sense for an exporter to have large reserves, but I never realized just how large.
>I think that should be ignored, same as you wouldn't say some guy with just a business idea is worth anything, until they start actually doing it. Oh boy, wait until you hear about Elon Musk...
They just spent 2 Billion for nuclear blue prints so slightly less cash now.
Considering they actually own the majority of Saudi Aramco... they are filthy rich. Only 1.5% of Saudi Aramco's shares are public. This raised $25.6 billion at the IPO. Not to mention that Aramco has just released the highest profit earnings in history - A $48.4bn quarterly profit. Even though only 1.5% of shares on the public market - this means they have a market capitalisation of $1.4 Trillion. That means the House of Saud (essentially the head of the Saudi state) own the rest of it. The royals therefore have control over a $1.4 Trillion asset. That's equivalent to the Norwegian oil fund. That means King Salman (The guy who ordered the assassination of the journalist in Turkey) Is worth more than the top 10 richest people on earth combined. It's fascinating. Demonstrates how real wealth is hidden from public view.
Kin Salman is 86 years old and is rumoured to have Alzheimer's. His son and heir - Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman runs the country and ordered the hit.
Isn’t it ironic? So rich and yet mortal with perhaps suffering one of the most degenerating disease imaginable.
He's human. The irony is more fundamental in that one human was given that much power over the collective work of humans in the first place. That slavery or pseudo-slavery via mere inequality in power is essentially all of human history. We barely even acknowledge this as it's still too real. Perhaps that's what's truly ironic, as Saudi Arabia is still a highly valued trading partner and that's all that ultimately matters to other powerful nations despite the propaganda.
With respect to the Kashoggi assassination, you’re thinking of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), not King Salman.
Years ago there was a massive cyber attack on windows computers owned by Saudi Aramco, the Saudi statr oil company. It coordinated a disk encryption on Ramadan when the offices were skeleton crews. Instead of ordering a wipe and reinstall in order to get back up and running they did two things. They just blindly filled orders of oil and then flew the fleet of aircraft to Thailand and singlehandedly bought the entire world supply of new hard disks to get back up and running on the chance they could recover data They are rich af
I think that the notion of personal wealth is meaningless for dictators like the Saudis or Putin. The entire state's budget is literally at their disposal.
I'm gonna save you some work. [Mohammed Bin Salman](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/04/mohammed-bin-salman-saudi-arabia-palace-interview/622822/) is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He is relatively young but has already proven himself to rule with an iron fist (and occasionally have journalists cut into pieces). He has a degree in Islamic Law and has used his intimate knowledge of Islam to conclude that Islam is whatever he says it is. He has opened up parts of the country but also locked up anybody who has dissented. Oh and he's breaking jailed extremists' spirits through corporate banality. For all intents and purposes, he is Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia has a GDP of 700 billion dollars (not a direct parallel but should give you a ballpark).
There is a reason Arabia has the Saudi name in front of it, they personally own the country as absolute monarchs
Nice to own a country, ain’t it? 😅
"L'État, c'est moi" - Louis XIV of France, 17th. century. 'The state, that's me'. EDIT: People below indicate that Louis XIV never said this.
^(The\* State or it'd be d'état, like in coup d'état.) However, a quick search shows that he never said this. There is no source for it. Historians do agree that it *embodies* absolutism and the absolute monarchies of the time. He did state something on his deathbed that was contrary to this false quote: "Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours." or ""I depart, but the State shall always remain."
There are plenty, but many of them are speculative based on uh... old banking families...
What are some keywords? Unclaimed richest in the world?
Haha, well context is key. Banking families, sovereign wealth families, chaebol families, "hidden" wealth are all easy guesses. You could also tag popular opinions like Mohammad bin Salman, Putin, Rothschilds, Sassoons, Samsung family members... A lot of it is naturally unverified and highly speculative, but there is definitely investigative journalism into all of it. Jewish banking families and alleged Papal royalty families if you want to go super conspiratorial. British royal family is always another interesting rabbit hole. Whenever you get to such extreme amounts of wealth though, you have to consider how liquid, how fungible, and how real they are. Elon Musk was supposedly worth more than the GDP of Greece, but isn't Tesla a bit overvalued? Edit: I agree there are problems with each and any of the people i listed. We're dealing with incalculable wealth though. When you (or the entity you control) is worth more than anything that could be feasibly spent or physically possessed... It's all really intangible at a certain point, so it very much relies on how much everyone else believes.
>Elon Musk was supposedly worth more than the GDP of Greece, That's comparing income (GDP) to wealth. United Kingdom, for example, has more assets than all billionaires combined.
Read up in how much money MBS and MBZ control through their sovereign wealth funds. It's multiple trillions that they essential solely control, though it isn't technically "net worth". I'm sure European royalty is in a similar boat.
Except European royalty don’t personally own their countries. All the sovereign wealth is controlled by the elected governments.
roughly current accounting states Vladimir Vladmirovitch Putin has about $100,000,000,000 in assets.
Putin is considered to probably be the wealthiest by many, but I'd like to see such a list.
Mmmm, I remember reading somewhere that Putin is (at that time) most likely the richest current world leader right now.
Saudi princes likely put him to shame.
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I googled and the gdp of saudi arabia is 700 billion while russia is 1.48 trillion. So even if it's hard to know how large a part each dictator controls, it is not unlikely that Putin could accumulate more than saudi royalty.
Almost no EU royalty is worth a billion or more, and none of them would reach anywhere close to this list. EU Royalty aren't as rich as most people probably think they are. Not even the Queen of England is a billionaire.
She’s about a half-billionaire, which isn’t enough to get into the top-250 richest UK citizens.
The Crown Estate is the biggest estate owner in all of the world a.k.a the Royal institution with it's head being Elizabeth. To argue that she isn't even a billionaire is crazy talk. She owns so many historical places, buildings and artifacts, that never have been valued aswell, it's insane. Think it's hard to put a number on their wealth but i wouldnt be suprised if it exceeds the norwegian oilfund's evaluation. E: just their jewelery worth a couple billions.
The Crown Estate belongs to the reigning monarch 'in right of The Crown', that is, it is owned by the monarch for the duration of their reign, by virtue of their accession to the throne. But it is not the private property of the monarch - it cannot be sold by the monarch, nor do revenues from it belong to the monarch. https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/resources/faqs/ Edit: Source
Former Spanish king Juan Carlos had a estimated fortune of 2.000.000.000€. Source: https://www.businessinsider.es/11-datos-saber-equivale-fortuna-rey-juan-carlos-i-817165 Out king had a LOT of undeclared things, he had to flee Spain and was living in the middle east for some years because he got in fiscal troubles for that. We don't call that a billion, but in english it is two billions.
The fact that we still have kings and queens today is insane
Amusingly, Norway has a King and Queen.
And most Norwegians want them.
TBF, have you seen the crown prince/princesses? All good looking folks, plus (asides from the self-proclaimed clairvoyant) they seem mostly normal for royalty.
>asides from the self-proclaimed clairvoyant I could search this, but it's worded curiously enough to ask for conversation's sake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_M%C3%A4rtha_Louise_of_Norway
Well, goodness, perhaps this explains Magnus' decision to relinquish his chess crown. She must've foreseen something terrible.
According to her she finds angel feathers everywhere, shame she doesn't want to show us one.
They had the foresight to be born into a family that owns everything so, why wouldn't they be kings and queens.
Exactly. Theyre such smart people. They deserve it for all the pre birth planning they did.
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You can milk anything with nipples…
To be fair, widespread democracy and general world stability (at least compared to pre-WWII) is *extremely* new and unprecedented on the scale of human history. We’re only what, 5 or so generations from the halfway point between the birth of America and the present day? If you have grandparents that were born in 1940, they’ve lived through 1/3 the life of America thus far
Oooof, you know youre getting old when someone says grandparents for a time when your parents were born.
Queen Elizabeth is worth about $500M. That doesn’t even put her in the top-250 richest people in the UK.
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Norwegians own their oil collectively as a nation (as opposed to private companies), so this is money that is spent on public education, welfare etc. www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/departementene/nfd/bilder/eierskap/s.-26-27-redusert-e.jpg
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We were lucky that the oil reserves were found offshore, so nobody else really owned the ground. When minerals has been found in the mountains in the past, some owner has made the profits off that. But they would still pay a shitton of taxes of course.
> We were lucky that the oil reserves were found offshore, so nobody else really owned the ground. Denmark has entered the chat and would like to fight you.
Like any other company would, it's just that these companies pay their dividends to the treasury and/or invest it in public infrastructure and amenities. Oh, and no, certainly not all minerals.
worth noting that norway is often touted as a "green" country, where in fact all those teslas have been financed by selling oil.
Don’t get high on your own supply.
I'd say that moniker is earned due to the fact that our nation is powered by 98% renewable energy.
The Government Pension Fund Global, also known as the Oil Fund, was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector.
Imagine having a government that did its job well enough that your country has surplus revenues. Sigh..... One day
Imagine having so much liquid gold coming out of the ground you don't have to fight for it. If Alaska was its own country it would be the same boat given their oil per capita. They already do have a payment to their residents. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/alaska/articles/2021-10-14/alaskans-get-annual-boost-of-free-money-from-oil-wealth
Alaska also makes around 3 bil per year off oil taxes. They did things right up there.
The Norwegians fund is long term though, they put the revenues they make from oil into a massive fund that essentially acts like a pension for the entire country. The government cannot by law to any money out of this fund directly only use the revenue the fund itself generates, which they use to greatly subsides all of Norway's public services. This way the money doesn't rely on the price of oil and will be there long after, the oil runs out.
I mean, CA had a $100 billion budget surplus this year. I can’t wait for an earthquake to break us off from the rest of the country.
Where's that budget surplus going though?
To support welfare states that always vote red.
Just to add to the previous comment, each Norwegian has about $300,000 in the fund. They cannot withdraw it of course but this money funds a variety of social programs and allows the government to offer generous social security. The investments that the fund makes are all diversified. Because the money came from oil, they will not invest in oil or Norwegian companies. The idea is that if oil or the Norwegian economy goes through a particularly bad time, the fund will remain unscathed.
Didn't know that Shell, the 12th largest equity investment of the fund had stopped being an oil company.
You'd think oil, but it's really a shell company.
While loads of countries were being dumb (for the country, great for individuals) with natural resources Norway was being smart
Norway is the Norwegian guy that wins the lottery and retires early to a seaside cottage going fishing every day... wait
Part of 5.5 million Norwegians wealth versus 10 rich people
Of note: 4 of the 10 wealthiest people made their money in Silicon Valley
And Ballmer is the only one who didn’t start the company that made him rich.
Technically, Buffett as well.
This is such a funny one, and just shows how weird things are. He is known for buying/investing in other companies. But even this he does through HIS company, Berkshire. But its weirder still. He didn't start Berkshire. It did used to do something else, it was just an early acquisition He now uses as his main holding company. So weird to me man.
Just names tied to legal entities. There’s people behind all decisions
Even funnier is the fact that he bought it out of spite after the dude who ran it asked to buy back his shares for 11 1/2 dollars per, but tried to swindle Buffett for 11 3/8 dollars per share instead. Buffett has gone on record to say that buying Berkshire Hathaway was the worst investment decision he's ever made.
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"Berkshire Hathaway is an American multinational conglomerate holding company." It's definitely not a fund all though it can seem like one at times as it invests in multiple other companies sometimes without a controlling stake.
Musk didn't start Tesla
Although Tesla is probably the majority of his wealth now, he made his fortune from PayPal (and X.com).
He didn’t really start those either to be fair
he didnt start paypal
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I was more concerned about geographical region. Being in San Jose in the late 90s must have been something. But I also forget these are real places lol. Like I moved to CA last year and when someone told me they grew up in Palo Alto I was like "oh...I forget that's a real place. Where I'm from, we just use that as short hand for tech CEOs."
Microsoft and Amazon were founded in Seattle not Silicon Valley
That also is a real place
Norway is also a very rich country. This is dizzying for so many reasons. 10 people shouldn't have that kind of wealth.
Im confused, 10 richest people or 9 richest people and one family?
Where’s the Walton Family? I’m pretty sure their past 200 billion.
I'm pretty sure Putin is at the top of the list, but we just don't know it, like Gaddafi was when he was toppled in Libya.
Xi, the Saudi royal family, several drug lords, probably the Emerati families. Theres a lot of people with undisclosed wealth.
Hard to believe any drugs lords have more than $200 Billion. Yes they make truck loads of money (literally) every day but they usually have a lot of people to keep happy and don’t amass that much because most of it comes in as cash and can’t be cleaned efficiently enough. So they use the cash for their purchases, fill a few vaults, and then start spreading it around. Storing $200 Billion in mixed cash would take literal warehouses.
It all, like any wealth, depends on how you count assets.
First name Arnault, last name Family?
Alternatively, it only takes eleven people to equal the collective oil wealth of an entire country.
Yeah, that’s what got me!
Here are the world fund rankings: https://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankings/ Interestingly, the Bank of Japan is the only fund with a higher asset-to-GDP ratio than the US Federal Reserve. They also own over half of Japan’s public debt
"There are only four types of Economies: Developed, Underdeveloped, Japan, and Argentina." Simon Kuznets
He’s right, but I’m a little high now. What does he mean.
It's a funny way to point out that the Japanese economy just works differently from other developed economies. And Argentina just shouldn't work but through fiscal and political intervention, centralized planning etc. they seem to be able to maintain a semi stable state of almost collapse that somehow manages to not trigger any popular revolts. (They had something like 50+% inflation in 2019)
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Do people there use their currency or another currency (usd)?
I was listening to the David McWilliams podcast and he was saying that Argentinean workers just kind of have inflation priced into their salary negotiations now and that by and large people are getting pay rises as the months progress - which of course is feeding into a permanent state of inflation.
Are there studies that use Argentina as an example that 2% inflation is just a recommendation and not optimal since it seems that as long as it is constant and expected that the nominal number really doesn't matter?
It's actually really confusing and part of it is due to exchange rates. There are like 15 different kinds of dollars that Argentinean people operate, blue, black, soy, tourist, corn etc. A lot of higher paying jobs pay in some form USD equivalent, some weird split or other kind of arrangements. Lower paying jobs for not which is actually creating a broadening gulf in class divides at the moment.
I watched a video on it earlier this year. The inflation is so rapid they get paid, and spend all the money. They'll buy however much food and necessities they need, convert the rest to USD, and put it under their beds (commonly obv not always under their bed lol). I believe it said Argentina has the most either US bills or 100$ bills besides the US, so they obviously very commonly do it. I think this was mainly because inflation was so rapid they could go to the store and a gallon of milk is $3.75 and 5 days later its $4.25. Also the government exchange rate from Argentinian currency -> USD is a lot different than the actual rate. You'll get a lot more Argentine currency for your USD from the street rates, I think going off government rates even meals in Buenos Aires would be expensive but off actual rate it's pretty normal. Oh and the main point really was just inflation is too high for young people to ever buy anything. Like you can't make a Argentine salary and pay for necessities and save up for a house, you'll just never get there because your money is worth so much less each year. So they probably have bad brain drain where their smart people all just leave and weakens their own economy.
I believe they kind of operate in both, as was common in eg Yugoslavia in the dying days. Get paid in one, convert it immediately then convert back as needed.
> They had something like 50+% inflation in 2019 7.5% last month alone!
"So what you're sayings is im indestructible!" "Oh, no, no. In fact, even the slightest breeze could..." "indestructible"
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Hah peasants we now have 100%+ inflation 7% in the last month alone ARGENTINA NUMERO 1 ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🥳🥳🥳
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We now just need to beat brazil in children mortality and we will be number one.
Ooof dude, where are you living with 80% inflation?
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Developed ~ people are rich enough to get high Undeveloped ~ people are not rich enough to get high Argentina ~ Inflation is so high that people roll their blunts with old peso-bills Japan ~ complicated central bank shit + old population (old people smoke less)
Having the highest life expectancy in the world is unfortunately a double edged sword
Having one of the lowest birth rates in the world only exacerbates the problem
Still higher than large European countries like Spain or Italy, and comparable to Germany. So not an outlier by any means actually in terms of developed nations. Higher rates of education -> higher rates of contraceptive usage -> lower birth rates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate
Super low immigration + low birthrate = decline.
This was incredible and succinct🙌🏽
As an Econ major I can attest that you just summed up years of my life in one reddit post
Argentina -> underdeveloped -> developed -> Japan
He's pointing out that prior to WWII Japan was basically still a feudal agrarian society; and after WWII developed extremely quickly to become one of the leading economies of the world in half a century. Argentina on the other hand was poised to become a leader in South America prior to WWII, and was one of the wealthiest countries in the world at that time. Tldr; Japan is rags to riches story; Argentina is a fall from grace story.
There are a group of economies that developed at roughly the same time. The US, Western Europe, etc. There are nearly everyone else. They haven't developed yet. And then we have the two really odd cases. Japan started centuries behind but modernized and caught up in the 1970s. Japan speed ran the entire industrial revolution in ~100 years. Argentina started on par, or even a head of some developed nations, but never stuck the landing. So they've been sitting in the same spot of "any decade now they'll be a developed economy" for 100 years.
Can i have a eli5 on this
Japan has little to no inflation. Salaries, the price of things etc. All have almost no fluctuation. And CEOs of big companies will take out ads in newspapers and the like to appologies for 10 cent increase on products. They are very "patriotic" if you can call it that. Most capitalists in Japan will rather no make as much money, if it would hurt their national power. This can be atributed to being China's neighbour.
There is a standard way in which economies develop. It applies to all countries. Except the normal rules (as far as we can tell) seem not to apply to Argentina or Japan. Argentina used to be a first world country, one of the richest and most developed on the planet. For decades it averaged 6% growth of GDP. Today it is a shadow of its former self. Japan used to have one of the smallest economies on the planet and very rapidly altered course to be one of the most important economies out there. Argentina's fall from grace, and Japan's rags to riches story, seem to undermine traditional notions about macro-economics about what should be reasonably possible to a given country given their starting positions.
That's not why the Japanese example is unusual, Japan was never one of the 'smallest' economies. It was always one of the most populated areas on the Earth and a major trading hub. Remember, until the last couple hundred years Northern China was the economic powerhouse in the world, and there was a lot of trade going on. Japan was also quite important by the end of the 19th century. The story of Japan is their meteoric rise, especially in the 70s and 80s, and how they were nearly able to compete with America. Then growth almost complete stopped, inflation almost completely stopped, and they've been stagnant for 25 years. Other 'similar' countries like South Korea, Germany and the UK have not experienced this.
Sovereign wealth funds should not be listed alongside, or compared to, assets held by central banks. Very, very different functions.
No, this is a pension fund, and very much NOT the wealth of the government, nor the whole country. Also, you could pick a smaller, poorer country, like Burundi, and a single person from this list is several multitudes more than their GDP. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government\_Pension\_Fund\_of\_Norway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway) [https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/government-budget-value#:\~:text=Government%20Budget%20Value%20in%20Norway,the%20second%20quarter%20of%202020](https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/government-budget-value#:~:text=Government%20Budget%20Value%20in%20Norway,the%20second%20quarter%20of%202020).
>No, this is a pension fund Even though it's called the "Government Pension Fund Global", it's not actually a pension fund, it can be spent by the government on literally anything. Your point that the total wealth of the country or the government is much more than just this fund still stands though.
They're only allowed to spend 3% in a given year. Its called a pension fund because it's purpose is to provide income for Norway once the oil revenue has ended, in the same way that a pension is to provide income for someone once they've retired and their salary has ended.
>They're only allowed to spend 3% in a given year. That is actually more a guideline than a hard rule, in both 2020 and 2021 they withdrew more from the fund due to Covid. >Its called a pension fund because it's purpose is to provide income for Norway once the oil revenue has ended, in the same way that a pension is to provide income for someone once they've retired and their salary has ended. Sure, but from the name you would believe it's an actual pension fund, that is the money is allocated to pensions and pensions only, like [CalPERS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS) or [CPP Investment board](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPP_Investment_Board). The Norwegian Oil fund is a *sovereign wealth fund* and much more comparable to say [Abu Dhabi Investment Authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Dhabi_Investment_Authority) or Singapore's [GIC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIC_\(Singaporean_sovereign_wealth_fund\)).
It’s a “pension for the norwegian society” whereas there’s a separate fund for pensions for norwegian government employees.
So you’re saying that I don’t get it all just by becoming the oldest Norwegian… …only Norwegian?
If Canada had nationalized our resources and had a long term strategy we would be in a similar boat. It's pathetic the state of affairs we're in given the bounty of resources we have. 🤦♂️
100% correct. And on top of that… - we collect ridiculously low royalties - we subsidize the private oil industry via tax and direct handouts - private oil companies shirk their cleanup responsibilities, taxpayers on the hook for that too - taxpayers build and maintain highways to resource extract sites and facilities - oh, and the best one… we suffer the health effects and environmental damage of poor private industry practices
Except Canada’s oil is basically the most expensive type to get out of the ground while norways is much cheaper. Canadian oil profits can never reach norways because of that, so Canada never had a chance to reach this type of fund.
Even if Canada didn’t get a national fund out of it, I remember years of Alberta giving ‘free’ money to citizens. They could have saved that for a rainy day, like say when the price of oil cratered and their extremely expensive oil became a massive stinking albatross around their necks and they desperately needed an alternative income source. Shoulda woulda coulda…alas. Edit: as pointed out below, it was not years of payments but a one time payment of 400$. I was confused. Still a stupid way to blow more than a billion dollars imo.
It's was a one year thing, every Alberta got a $400 check
I remember getting that cheque. I moved from BC to AB and was going to school. I couldn't believe that the province was handing out money to its citizens! A nice gift at 21 y/o.
Australia checking in: we let our mining companies (and foreign owned companies) take as much iron ore and coal as they like and we are thankful if any of them feel obliged to pay any tax. So much for royalties. One state (Western Australia) does collect some but nothing on what they could feasibly tax.
Hey, we tried getting them to pay tax in 2013... And then the mining lobby spent 3x the total election budget of EVERY SINGLE POLITICAL PARTY COMBINED on a smear campaign against the leading party. Individually, we pay more in tax annually than mining companies that make billions in profits from our nation's resources. It's a disgrace.
For a data subreddit you guys sure don’t like looking at data.
Yep, pretty sad how we pissed it away. All the politicians in our country are dick weeds
Norway didnt *nationalize* its oil, it just invested the taxes it levies from it in a fund, instead of pissing it away like Canada did. Also Norway's oil is much, much easier to extract than Canada's. Canada tried to nationalize its oil and it was every bit the disaster as anticipated.
Norwegian government owns oil extraction and processing companies. Statoil literally means government oil.
This oil belongs to all Norwegians. This is how their governing system supports their citizens
As an Australian this makes me so envious We've sold all our resources for cheap and have fuck all to show for it.. I wish our government was like yours
Don't ask where Ecuadorian and Sri Lankan politicians have sold their resources to
People obsess over the wealth of the individuals listed, but remember this-- they're the wealthiest "public" people. Their wealth is tied to the values of their public companies. There are actually individuals that are far wealthier, but are private and you'll never know how much money they have. There are also individuals that are royalty (or oligarchs like Putin) and have enough wealth to put Norway to shame. Like a Saudi oil prince, for example.
Are there educated guesses about these figures?
It's guessed that the Saudi royal family has well over a 1.4 trillion dollars. Which is way way way beyond what even the British royal family has. With that said the uks royal family likely doesn't give a shit.
It's impossible, along with the more modern billionaires we're also talking about people whose families made their wealth in medieval and colonial times. But whose assets have been hidden behind all kinds of opaque constructions where the living members get an allowance. Things like the Dutch East India Trading company was valued at 7.9 trillion dollars in today's money, one of the reasons for its decline was too much money getting pulled out of the company, but that money ended up somewhere. Another much more recent example was Leopold II, who used Congo as his personal slave state and ended up leaving about 1 billion dollars to his mistress in 1909. And nobody knows where that money ended up. The difference with a lot of new money is that they know better than to show it off. But you can be sure that quite a few families in Western Europe can compete with the richest of the rich.
It depends on who it is. Second or third generation wealth it's likely that 50% or so is within private investments. First generation tech billionaires earned most of their wealth through the holdings in a single public company.
Part of the problem with that question is that how do you even measure the wealth of someone who effectively owns a country? Putin can have basically anything in Russia that he wants without consideration to price. What is that worth in dollars?
The idea of handling 1300 billion anything is wild to me. Like imagine being in an office and casually moving around that unfathomable amount of wealth with a signature or click of a mouse.
Looks like one of the top 10 richest people is in fact multiple people.
True, but they conduct business as one really tall guy in a trench coat.
My math give us $248,000 per person, not bad.
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Data: Forbes, Norges Bank Investment Management Tools: RStudio, ggplot2
I hope everyone understands that yes Norway as a country is rich but just because that is the case right now, it doesn't mean most people who live here will make more money than other western countries. For example, engineers and tech workers can probably earn more in US than in Norway. Tax is really high here but I think yes most people will be able to afford all living necessities and can have a high quality of life.
There’s a saying here, “better to be poor in Europe, or rich in America”. And I think it holds true for the most part. Tech workers absolutely earn way more in the US than in Europe, and if you’re rich or upper middle class in the US life is pretty great. If you aren’t making as much and need parental leave, health insurance, and vacation time because your company won’t provide it, you might wanna live in Europe.
yeah this graphic just shows that the government of norway has a good saving strategy to build a fund of of the profits of its natural resourses. my country could not do something like this because of the lack of resourses. but a lot of very poor countries actually could if they did not such corrupt structures in place.
Ye I know. Norway is looking out for it's future since they can't rely on oil forever. Sorry to hear about your country. And yes sadly many countries have corrupt government.
Incoming comments from people who don't know what net worth actually means
"Arnault family" is "one person"?
All the wealth of the top 10 billionaires would only run the US gov't for a couple months.
The fund has a small stake in more than 9,000 companies worldwide, including the likes of Apple, Nestlé, Microsoft and Samsung. On average, the fund holds 1.3 percent of all of the world’s listed companie
Imagine if the UK had been smart enough to make an oil fund instead of letting private companies steal all the resources for their own wealth.
Thanks a lot thatcher
Yeah, but she made like 10-15 people rich so it's all good right?
Or the US. Their oil fund would probably be close to a hundred times as large, i.e. about a hundred trillion USD.
or the Netherlands, Denmark, etc every nation apart from Norway.
We (Dutch) made plenty of money for the government from gas revenues. We just spent it all immediately.
and introduced the term dutch disease to modern economics!
The US has several funds like this. The problem is these are specific to individual states. Nearly all of these are oil states (Like Texas and Alaska). They are also apparently nowhere near as diverse as Norway's fund. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund
Funny. People here are focusing on the 10 people listed, but I haven't seen anything about the great move it was for the Norway gov to create Statoil and keep it a state run domestic industry that places profits directly in funds for public benefit. The way I understand it is Norway's oil fund is like a state provided 401k, but I think it's more focused on real property rather than stocks, and each Norwegian by right has claim to their share - usually seen as their social security
I think the point here that’s missing is Norway decided that profits from oil are put into a state plan to look after their citizens. It’s unique.
Does buffett still have his money? I thought i read he donated some \~90% of it. Or was that of his cash and not net worth?
I think his plan is to donate the money when he dies. Same with Bill Gates
He has been donating as he goes. He also pledged to give most of his wealth away to charity when he dies. No one does the math of course - if he retained what he’s given, then how much would he have now? The comparison against the list would be interesting.
If Bill Gates had never sold any of his Microsoft stock he would be worth more than 500 billion.