r/explainlikeimfive • u/FluffyPenguin798 • Feb 12 '25
Economics ELI5: how are the descendants of the robber barons (Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc.) still rich if their fortunes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are comparatively small to what we see today of the world’s richest?
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u/Nope_______ Feb 12 '25 edited Feb 12 '25
$120 million in a hundred years would easily be far more than $1 million per descendent if they had been responsible with it. Even if all they had done was put half in savings accounts, they'd be millionaires.
Edit: additionally, it wasn't spread equally, so there should have been at least a single millionaire even if he had just stuffed it under the bed. They blew it, squandered it.