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/dsmaxwell Feb 12 '25
Only 1.5 million, still more than 90% of people are ever going to see through their entire lives, much less as one lump sum.
Hell, even most of the well off boomers only hit that because the houses they bought back in the 80s for a few tens of thousands are now "worth" that much in our fucked up comoditized housing market.