How influential is old money in the US?
Just wondering about whether US “aristocrats” exists. for instance a family with a long history of politics or an influential family with extremely diverse assets and a core business that is inherited through generations. If they do exist, how influential are they in the government and the economy? Not trying to sound like some conspiracy theory. Just curious on how far up top can people climb in society.
There are a few families: Bush, Kennedy, Clintons who were/are involved in politics and have fairly large amounts of wealth. I guess they can be considered "American aristocrats" there are also the Rockefellers who are still wealthy and whose wealth has survived but is split up across many members and many genarations. In the future there may be the Trump family. I can't think of anyone like the Rothchilds in the US. The Kennedy family is probably the closest thing we have to aristocrats.
The Kennedy family is only valued at ~$1.2bn.
https://www.forbes.com/profile/kennedy/#5e4666875007
Not sure how great this source is but if you are going to site the Kennedys then you also can look at this list of 25.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/070116/top-25-richest-am…
Have personally worked with some of these families on transactions as my BB has a strong Wealth Management/Private Bank and there are a lot of PIPEs or work done with family offices. None come anywhere close to the Rothschild, save maybe the Walton family.
Clintons aren't old money. Bill Clinton came from middle of nowhere Arkansas.
I know, just couldn’t think of any one else that is active in politics plus has a large amount of wealth.
Do the Kardashians count?
If you count social media, PR, general exposure and the ability to create a lot more wealth in the future... then yes, I would say.
Not many people are billionaires in their early 20s. and that is just one person in that family. If they keep going at this rate and create more generations, invest wisely... their influence is very strong. Maybe not politically, but they have millions of people following and listening.
New money is far more influential than old money in the U.S. Far more. The Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla, et al billionaires have an order of magnitude more influence than the Bushs or Kennedys. The Bushs and Kennedys might have more influence over international relations but a much smaller impact on culture and society.
I remember reading somewhere (I think around the time Amazon bought Whole Foods), that Jeff Bezos said he’s “considering” entering the pharma space. CVS, Walgreens, and similar tumbled. In a few hours, billions in market capitalization vanished because Jeff said he’s considering something. The amount of power he holds, which is probably even more so now, is mind blowing.
Can confirm. Went to a school with bunch of old money types (also lots of new money too). Most of them just live off of their family's money and not do much.
Wealth only gives you power if you decide to do something with it other than loafing off.
The Rothschilds conspiracy gets me every time. If there is something like that in the US, I guess it's been hidden really well.
Im sure there are very influential family members around today but the fact that the family was incredibly powerful not so many generations ago is a fact. I mean they invented banking essentially and married relatives to keep their wealth and influence concentrated.
Clinton's are not old money. Old money is very very powerful in the usa. If you don't know...well..you don't know. Certain last names have more power and influence.
Haha, nah. Say your great grandfather was #329 on the forbes 400 list in 1985 with 200 million...
He probably had four children, who had four children, who had four children. You claim is roughly 3.125 million in 1985 dollars. Say its roughly 5x over the years (optimistic to be honest, considering a lot of money is donated, used up, etc.)... your claim is about 16 million. Your grandfather is probably still alive and is living on the money. Have to wait another 30 years minimum before your parents die to get that money.
Not bad, but these families don't have any influence these days. Family name could land you a top job or university, but nothing more asides from that unfortunately.
There are a number of old money families that have influence (maybe less than 20 American families). The reality is that tech billionaires have the most influence now.
What about the Walton's
Deleted. Double post
The heir to the Kennedy throne just took his first job out of college at Accenture... So...
The Weyerhausers & du Ponts lowkey are huge though. They all go to HYPs and have for decades, and they've all bred into other blueblood government/business families.
Nah, they're not. Similar to Kennedys; not in our generation.
I personally know 4 Weyerhausers & 2 du Ponts at my HYP. Perhaps not 100% of the 30 grandkids of each family go, but a very disproportionate amount go to these places. The Kennedy kid went to Wesleyan for sports, which historically has been a great LAC although it's fallen a bit on hard times.
This is incorrect. I know a du Pont, and she doesn't go to the school's you've listed.
Let me guess neither do you?
How do you even define "Old money"?
There are "old old money" families that have been wealthy for centuries (before the Industrial Revolution) like the du Ponts, Roosevelts, and Astors. There are so many of them with moderate wealth and the last time these guys were influential was before WW1.
Then, there are late 19th century industrialists & bankers like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Morgans, etc... These guys probably have money but you rarely hear about them.
And then, there are early to mid 20th century moguls like the Hiltons, Kochs, Waltons, etc... Many of whom are still influential.
I used to work at a company whose clients were mainly ultra-wealthy people- net worths in the 100s of millions or billions. In almost every single case that I can remember, the client was either the person who earned the money or - in a couple of cases - was the ex-wife of the person who earned the money. The one exception I recall was a NYC real estate family that had gotten wealthy one generation earlier.
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