General Discussion

brush

(53,978 posts) Tue Feb 26, 2019, 11:15 PM Feb 2019

A question for historians/economists: With income inequality so extreme today...

are the fortunes of present day billionaires (Bezos, Gates, Buffet, Ellison, etc.), larger proportionately than those of the gilded age robber barons like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbuilt, Morgan, Gould etc.?

6 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

A question for historians/economists: With income inequality so extreme today... (Original Post) brush Feb 2019 OP

Just on Rockefeller Docreed2003 Feb 2019 #1

God! That's mind blowing. That answers that. brush Feb 2019 #2

And that amount was probably after he gave a lot away with BigmanPigman Feb 2019 #3

Yeah their charitable donations were enormous in today's money Docreed2003 Feb 2019 #4

Yabbut, back then there were only a handful of guys with that kind of wealth... Wounded Bear Feb 2019 #5

Yes, so we've made progress in better wealth distribution *within the top 0.1%* unblock Feb 2019 #6

Docreed2003

(16,902 posts)

1. Just on Rockefeller

Reply to brush (Original post)

Tue Feb 26, 2019, 11:20 PM

Feb 2019

I found this quote on Forbes which it mind blowing:

By the time Rockefeller died in 1937, his assets equaled 1.5% of America's total economic output. To control an equivalent share today would require a net worth of about $340 billion dollars, more than four times that of Bill Gates, currently the world's richest man.

brush

(53,978 posts)

2. God! That's mind blowing. That answers that.

Reply to Docreed2003 (Reply #1)

Tue Feb 26, 2019, 11:25 PM

Feb 2019

BigmanPigman

(51,660 posts)

3. And that amount was probably after he gave a lot away with

Reply to Docreed2003 (Reply #1)

Tue Feb 26, 2019, 11:27 PM

Feb 2019

his philanthropy. I was watching the History Channel when they did a series on these financial tycoons and after one of them died, I think it was Morgan who died first and Carnegie and Rockefeller started giving tons of their money away in a philanthropy contest. I also learned that the men were so rich that the US Treasury borrowed money from them!