Money money money money

[dancerjodi]

I finished paying my bills for the week with $30 to spare. It will get me gas in the car and if any other odds and ends come up its coming out of my savings (better than credit, I guess). Then I picked up my book to read another chapter with the time left before my lunch hour ended.

Did you know that when William Henry Vanderbilt died in 1885 his estate was worth $200 million dollars. $200 million dollars in 1885! I wonder what that would be worth now with inflation. Does anyone alive today have this kind of wealth? IIRC one of the wealthiest Vanderbilts was worth more than the USA at that time (random tidbit from one of the mansion tours that Brian and I went on). At the urging of his sneaky daughter-in-law Alva, William Henry changed his will so that the estate was split almost evenly between the two sons (rather than the eldest getting the whole pot, leaving Alva and her husband William Kissam Vanderbilt with nothing). She did this at the urgings of Mrs. Astor who was also married to a second son but was a lot older and not in a position to do anything about parental inheritances.

I have to wonder what role the wives of these rich and powerful men had in them achieving what they did. There would be no Metropolitan Opera House, no grand home on 5th ave, yacht (named after herself), or 'summer cottage' in Newport http://www.newportmansions.org/page3517.cfm without Alva. I guess it was my arm-twisting that ended up with us having a house off of Moody (unless it really is something in the water)! ;)

Comments

$200M in today's dollars

[mbaspen.livejournal.com]

A back of the envelope calculation yields: 6.942 Billion. That's probably not entirely accurate as it assumes 3% constant dollar inflation, which may or may not be what that 120 year period averages to. This would put W.H. Vanderbilt at #31 on richest people list (http://www.forbes.com/lists/results.jhtml?passListId=10&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&searchParameter1=unset&searchParameter2=unset&resultsStart=1&resultsHowMany=25&resultsSortProperties=-numberfield3%2C%2Bstringfield2&resultsSortCategoryName=Worth%28%24bil%29&passKeyword=&category1=category&category2=category). Extremely impressive.

Re: $200M in today's dollars

[mbaspen.livejournal.com]

Gah! I should have said #55, just after George Soros.