Forbes' list always amuses me...

The title of that list should be amended:

Forbes 400 Richest Americans Who Chose to Report Their Net Worth or Whose Net Worth is Public Knowledge

There's no law that says "if you are really wealthy, you have to tell everyone how wealthy you are." Buffett, Gates.. nearly all wealth is through publicly-traded, insider-owned stocks and is thus reported.

I'd wager that there are at least 10-20 American persons/families with more wealth than #1 on Forbes list.

yea San Ford, that would be a ton of money to hide. Also, if Forbes did families the Waltons would probably be #1. The only ppl with such a vast fortune that I think could hide 50 billion plus would be the Rothschilds, and they have to own a bank to do it.

I think San Ford has a good point. There are a lot of people who are rich but who's networth isn't publicly known.

I actually came across a list on richest families a while back and it put the Rothschilds at the top spot with a net worth of, wait for it... 100 Trillion dollars.

To say it's exaggerated is a gross understatement, but it kinda makes you think; how much is a family who was worth 6 billion in the early 1900's be worth now?

2nd was the Rockefellers with $10 Trillion and then 3rd was the British Royal Family, their reasoning was that they still hold the royal whatever that keeps them as the true owners of Canada, Fiji, and a few other countries.

I'll try to look for it, it was kinda funny really...

Well, actually, since the federal reserve is privately owned, the Rothschilds are really worth several trillion. ; D

Not that I have experience or anything, but I would be fairly confident that someone (especially several family members) would be capable of shielding a substantial amount of assets.

Unless Forbes has access to IRS tax returns, etc. there is no way for them to even come close to estimating the net worth of folks who are abnormally private or who have gained their wealth through privately held company and business transactions.

Also, I am fairly certain that the Rothschilds could Walker Texas Ranger spin kick the Waltons in a net worth battle. Although the claims are highly unfounded, there are 'rumors' that the family's combined net worth reaches into the "low" hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars...but like I said, much of that is speculation because there is no way to really know.

$100 TRILLION...now that's a trust fund.

Regards

Riiiight... Someone's spent too much time watching the Money Masters.

Although I agree that there may be people whos net worth is not known or shared. I highly doubt that there is 500 billion to 1trillion dollars that is unknown. (10-20 famillies with more money than #1 aka 50+ Billion) Maybe some Saudis somewhere/Oil tycoons but definately not americans.

It is a little hard to believe that the Rotschild/Rockefellers would have fallen so far back just because of inflation. As families they are probably near the #1 spot if not higher.

If you add RE people to those listed above, its interesting to see that finance does account for a sizeable portion of top fortunes.

Absolutely no way the Rothschilds have $100 trillion because GDP for the WORLD in 2008 was $61 trillion. Maybe at most a few hundred billion or just maybe very very low trillions

still a shitton of moeny though

After a point it really doesn't matter. What is 100 Trillion going to buy that 100 Billion cannot.

Anthony said it best, but yea, low hundreds of trillions is absurd and literally unbelievable.

Couldn't find the list I was looking for but I found a discussion that pegged them at 300 Trillion lol.

^^^ That's more than the world economy is worth.

This reminds me of a thread on this investment from when I was back in college where people were complaining it was returning 10%/month and had been doing so for the past 60 years.

I finally got sick of it and created a graphic of planet earth stating, "IF SWISSFUND HAD STARTED IN 1946 WITH $1000 AND HAS BEEN CONSISTENTLY RETURNING 10% PER MONTH, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WORTH MORE THAN THE ENTIRE WORLD ECONOMY BEFORE WE EVEN LANDED A MAN ON THE MOON."

That damn trillion valuation keeps popping in my head so I did my own:

They were supposed to be worth 6 billion in 1850, at a very low 3% interest/inflation per year that comes out to to $679.37 B today.

That's enough to buy Exxon, Petrochina, China Telecom, and 14000 pornstars (@ 5000) to make Buffet stutter his one-liners.

So I guess becoming trillionaires: plausible

Quick update: http://www.finalternatives.com/node/13925

Thanks Goodbread, I'm surprised Peter Theil's still on it, I thought Clarium got hit real bad...

EDIT: apparently he owns 3% of facebook so I guess he isn't doing too bad.

Rothschild: http://mobile.forbes.com/device/article.php?CALL_URL=http://www.forbes…? Remember that with families like that, it's spread among a bunch of people. And liquidity is usually a problem, which can really slow down your extravagant spending ...

J. Paul Getty discovered in his rise to wealth, "those who can count their money are not truly rich".

Forbes magazine will never include the truly opulent of the earth, who choose to stay anonymous based on civil perception of their vast control of resources. Research shows that the actual Forbes founding was influenced by banker J.P. Morgan in order to control the "perception" of wealth. If the populace thinks Bill Gates is the wealthiest man in the world, the populace will not seek to gain real wealth through the holding of allodial titles as assets.

Some posters have stated that there is no way a "trillionaire" exists due to the worldwide GDP being lower than than the said worth. This fails to bring in to part that financial markets daily DWARF the GDP of the whole world, markets such as the foreign exchange trade $3 trillion dollars a day. The derivatives market is said transfer at least $743 Trillion annually. Other markets are also in the trillion dollar range. On top of that, royals, dukes, and sheikhs hold real estate portfolios that house trillions of dollars of land holdings. Even more, the United States government in the form of mutual funds, trades trillions of dollars, and has annual returns in the same amount. Finance is the new ruler of the world, not production. In fact, measuring wealth in the form of GDP is fairly misleading.

Families like the Rothschilds, and the Royalty of England do not publically report their investments or holdings. They are not legally obligated to such. With the advent of holding companies its very difficult to tell who is really behind what buyouts, you hear about Taco Bell, but never of !Yum Brands, a holding company.

Legend has it, that it was said: "The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it's profits or so dependant on it's favors, that there will be no opposition from that class". This totally explains the reason Forbes was created, to mask a phantom system of wealth, the Medicis did it, the new wealthy have learned to do it also.