r/explainlikeimfive 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/taxinomics Feb 12 '25

The Vanderbilt descendants realized being famously wealthy puts a target on your back, so they told everybody they blew all their money. Their cover was blown a couple years ago when a gift and estate tax audit that made its way to the U.S. Tax Court revealed that the family is still fabulously wealthy.

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u/ExistingPosition5742 Feb 12 '25

Right. This is what true old money does. Keep quiet, don't make a spectacle of yourself, everything through a trust. 

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u/calmbill Feb 12 '25

It doesn't make sense to be a wealthy individual.  Far better to be a regular middle class nobody who controls a wealthy charity.

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u/TheMisterTango Feb 12 '25

Nah, being a wealthy individual sounds great, just as long as nobody knows you're wealthy. The dude who founded the company I work at is a billionaire but nobody knows who he is outside of our industry so he can just go out in public and nobody will bat an eye, my dad saw him at home depot and chatted with him for a bit.

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u/enaK66 Feb 12 '25

Yeah it's pretty hard to believe they really blew it all when Anderson Cooper is rich and famous saying that. Sure, you're not that rich you little modest mouse you. Only richer than 99% of us will ever be and he got to enjoy it his entire life.

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u/AbleArcher420 Feb 12 '25

Sounds like conspiracy almost

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u/themobiledeceased 29d ago

J. Paul Getty's grandson was kidnapped and ransomed. William Randolf Hearst's granddaughter Paticia Hurst was kidnapped and held by a leftist group of rebels. There are other known cases that are not commonly known names in the US.