How Wealthy Are You?

Neil A Costa

 

People often refer to Bill Gates as the richest man in the world, but is the Microsoft software billionaire the richest American ever? In dollar terms he is, but it is inappropriate to compare Bill Gates’ wealth with those who came before him as Bill has had the benefit of decades of inflation. A more appropriate basis for comparison is to compare people’s wealth as a percentage of the United States’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at the time.

The following shows America’s richest people, noting their wealth as a percentage of the United States’ GDP at the time.

 

Name 

Born

Died

Made Money From  

Wealth

John D Rockefeller

1839

1937

Oil

1.53%

Cornelius Vanderbilt

1794

1877

Rail

1.15%

John Astor

1763

1848

Real Estate

0.93%

Stephen Girard

1750

1831

Financier; Shipping

0.67%

Andrew Carnegie

1835

1919

Rail roads; steel

0.6%

Bill Gates would be in sixth place on the above table.

Sadly for Bill Gates, he is no longer the richest person in the world. Ingvar Kamprod, from Sweden, who founded the retail chain IKEA, is the world’s richest person.

Before you reach for your tissues and consider sending Bill Gates a food parcel, on 11 June 2004 his Microsoft shares, which only form part of his wealth, were valued at US$30,000,000,000.

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