Topic: Top richest from history, one hyperinflated the economy single handedly! (Read 250 times)

I thought the Inca Kings were the richest people in the world at some stage (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries)    .... I have read that Atahualpa's treasure amounted to 221,089 ounces of 22-karat gold, which would have been valued at more than $387 million today.

In any way, thank you for posting this... it is interesting that the Egyptians were so rich and to think that a pyramid was originally built by 4,000 workers over the course of 20 years and it will cost about $5 billion to build one today. (in 5 years with modern equiptment) 

The list is interesting but if we are as objective as possible the people at the top should not be merchants but kings, emperors and dictators, as they could command the economy of all the territory they were managing and do whatever they wanted with it, besides we must not forget they owned gold and other assets, but they also were the owners of most technologies and even human beings, making it very easy for me to tell they had to be the wealthiest people in history.

Going out of the main purpose of the post, I'd just like to point out how much this kind of post can motivate others. See as cringey as it looks there are a lot of members here who needs a reminder of why they are spending so much time learning and gathering information on how to invest, basically they have a goal and sometimes they lose sight of that. Through posts like this they see the people who were able to get to that same goal and that reminds them just how possible it is despite the struggles they have to go through. Hence, I appreciate OP for posting this, especially after reading one post on how one member is losing hope.

There is a difference between money you do have in stocks, in cash and in state/company goods/things!

Do you have your money in stocks, you have to keep your eyes on the trading volume. Maybe it is not possible to cash-in/sell your stocks because of the lack of trading volume. And maybe you have to sell your stocks in packages of smaller amounts, so after you sell the first package, the price is dropping, and your wealth is dropping. (Ford, Musk, Rockefeller are fitting in this category.)

If you have a lot of your wealth in state goods/things, like the monarchs Caesar, Romanov and other figures, it is simular with the stocks? Who can buy it at once? And who can buy smaller amounts in packages? And if you sell packages of your wealth, the remaining wealth is becoming more instable.

And if you have it in cash, just look up the bible! Basically it describes like different forces try to destablize and control cash money. And what do you want to buy with this big amount of cash? If you buy some, you come more into the other two categories!

Henry Ford worth $199 billion dollars? Big bucks. However, we are discussing adjusted prosperity here. What was the dollar's value back then? Totally different. Back then, they did not even have Twitter to announce their money. However, Mansa Musa? That is certainly the case. The man was so wealthy that his excessive generosity ruined the prosperity of an entire nation! That is certainly something! Making the gold market crash and then saving it? That is a serious business strategy, but why would anyone want to induce inflation in order to correct it later? This action seems odd to me

But sixty thousand persons on a trip? Construction of mosques every Friday? Consider the logistics involved! It's like launching a new company every week. And this is where I discover a small issue: if Musa donated gold to every city but only caused inflation in Egypt, did the other cities not have intelligent economists? Regardless, history is replete with such prominent figures. It makes you consider what kind of legacy we're leaving, doesn't it? Your narrative is fascinating, and it prompts us to consider prosperity and power in entirely new ways

I don't know the situation in your country, but the middle class is gradually disappearing in our society. The gap between the rich and the poor is expanding because of corruption and unfavorable government policies. The economy is organized in a way that favors the rich. Before we had the American dream where nobody could become successful but today you have to be connected to a powerful politician or business executive to climb the ladder to the top. Inflation and currency devaluation are making hard work and diligence worthless because what you earn is not enough to provide for your needs.

It is very interesting to see that many religions have different accounts of the richest men in the olden days. Based on the Holy Bible the richest man was Solomon who was the son of David. His wealth was so much that he married about three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines. You just don't know which account to believe.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20biblical%20account,Sidon%20and%20of%20the%20Hittites.

In the past, hoarding wealth was difficult, it is not now where you can invest in another country or invest in digital things, where you had to follow up on your investments yourself, you can only buy gold and the amount of gold is limited so that it makes the revolution restricted, today money can be printed without a golden cover The debt ceiling is much higher than the existing funds, and there is a stock market and the possibility of buying back shares, which makes multiplying wealth very easy.

The scriptures mentioned that the richest man in ancient history was Qaroon, also known as Croesus, who had separate rooms filled with gold and silver to the point that the keys to these rooms needed an army of men to hold.

https://www.rekhta.org/allusions/qaroon-croesus

While this post is about individual wealth, what about to discuss it at country level? No one has mentioned Argentina here. Probably, you guys haven't heard about The Argentina Paradox, yes, it's about the economic history of Argentina. There was a time when Argentina was one of the wealthiest country in the world. It achieved great economy in early 20th century but soon after that, it started to decline and today Argentina is definitely not a country where people want to move.
Have a look at this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Argentina

It's not just the size of economy, but also the lower mobility of the capital could play a factor. With no internet or even fast means of travel, arbitrage took a very long time (as compared to today's world), so any local effects lasted longer.
But according to the Wikipedia, the effect on the price of gold wasn't as great as some might think. According to some Arabic writers, gold dropped from 25 to 22 silver dirhams for about a year, which, according to some historians was within a normal fluctuation of that time.

We are people trying to get a small piece of the pie. Those on the list are the ones who decide what the cake will be made of. There have been such people at every stage of history. In the past, these people were few in number, but now there are many people like them, known/unknown.

I don't know exactly what the difference is between a middle-class person's chance of being rich in the past and a middle-class person living today. We have more possibilities, but the world is not the same as before. Everything is in our hands and depends on our effort, but still, I am not sure whether we are the luckier ones in the past.

Those were the richest of their time in the sense that they were the most resourceful of their time and had a lot of people at their disposal but in this respect I remember Warren Buffet saying how modern productivity has made a middle class person in many ways richer than these rich people of long ago. He said that if Rockefeller wanted to watch a baseball game he had to physically go to the stadium, and even if he had the best seat, nowadays we can watch all the baseball games we want from our home with a huge screen, with an ideal temperature thanks to heating or air conditioning, and if we want to know something about a player or about the league statistics we can consult it from our mobile phone.

The difference is more noticeable the further back in time we go. Many middle and working class people have travelled halfway around the world thanks to cheap flights, they buy clothes every now and then, they own cars and have tasted a thousand flavours of food in various restaurants, something that Mansa Musa or Augustus Caesar could not do.

Mansa Musa is more of a mythical figure and the legends surrounding him should not be viewed as facts.
I think that the medieval economy of Egypt was relatively small, so creating inflation by spending gold there wasn't as difficult as it seems.
Mali had lots of gold mines centuries ago, but I wonder where did all this wealth disappear. If the Mali empire was so rich, when why it didn't expand towards southern Europe(Spain and Portugal)? The story of Mansa Musa proves that simply having natural resources like gold and silver cannot make a country rich. The true source of wealth lies in having advanced technology and capital.

That's really huge, imagining how the cost before was, and again, they are for sure powerful. Though I've just been curious on what documentary this is and how reliable their calculation or sources are on this because it's too much, I am again amazed at how they accumulated it or, like, what is their formula for getting such huge money. Those people are for sure smart because they found a way to earn that money, and money works for them.

I do not believe this list, as it is for people who lived in different periods, and therefore the value of the dollar in those periods is completely different from its value now. I heard the story of King Mansa Musa several times, but there is no evidence to confirm it, and with the printing of money, it became easy for some people to have an infinite amount of money compared to the past, as the gold supply remains limited despite all the mines around the world.



Documentary films are not considered a source of information because some events may be distorted to fit the narrative, but you can consider them as the beginning of the search for sources.

I assume that the wealth of these people, although expressed in money (you have in dollars), but in fact, this wealth was not in bank accounts or deposits, but for the most part was in property, means of production, jewelry, art and luxuries, and so on. Therefore, all these figures are very subjective, because it is impossible to evaluate it objectively. Which follows from the next paragraph. The next inaccuracy is the years of activity of these rich people. They all lived in different periods of time (different centuries). Therefore, is it even possible to compare their wealth. And another nuance is that the majority on this list are the rulers of countries who had access to huge wealth only by birthright, with the exception of Rockefeller (banker), Ford and Carnegie (entrepreneurs), who essentially earned this huge money themselves.

I am curious to know otherwise, if the people on this list lived in our time, then which of them would invest in bitcoin.

Fun fact: Mansa Musa became so wealthy by trading salt and gold.

Agreed that inflation may not be what will affect bitcoin but regards to dump in the price of bitcoin, that is very possible and it is happening. Just last week the allege sale of Elon musk SpaceX acquired bitcoin dump caused the price shield of 9% which is about $4k drop in price which is already huge for within 24hours. So just like an individual can use his gold to crash the market and cause inflation, so also that could happen with bitcoin. But like you have the view, bitcoin won't be affected by inflation because gold or fiat dumped which was evident during the COVID-19.

It is difficult to compare the wealth of people from different times. That is why people are always regarded as "the richest man of his time"  as Mansa Musa is usually regarded.
Mansa simply means King, so that translates to "King Musa". That means he was a monarch and we can't determine what portion of his wealth belonged to the empire and which was his personal wealth.

Before Musa became king Mali was already a very strong and big empire. They were so sophisticated that they were able to send out 200 ships to explore the Atlantic Ocean, which was the "first exploratory mission". The second exploratory mission of the Atlantic Ocean by the Mali empire was with 2000 ships.
I'm just putting this out so y'all can get a rough idea of how rich and sophisticated they were at the time. I don't think even the British Empire could afford that at the time.

Some people argue that in those times, the wealth of the empire belonged to the ruling Monarch.

Some claim that Mansa Musa's wealth was equivalent to about $ 400 billion, but like most historians love to argue, his wealth is impossible to accurately calculate.
Some believe that Musa had more gold than people even imagined and I have to believe this. I believe if his wealth is calculated accurately it would be more than $400billion.
When you read about the things that he did, and the amount of gold he travels with you'll understand why I feel that way.
Musa went to the hajj with 18 tons of gold, that's like a billion dollars in today's value. So yeah, he might be richer than we imagine. 

Even today, many people would be surprised to find out who the richest people in the world are, and they are certainly not people about whom hundreds or thousands of articles are written every day. These are people (or families) whose wealth was not created in a short period of time (several tens of years), but who acquired that wealth over centuries, and it is not measured in billions, but in trillions of $.

These are people who, unlike some others, do not need and do not want media attention, and the so-called richest people are for them children playing with change.

One man singlehandedly caused hyperinflation in an entire region, that's wonderful. I stand to be corrected Bitcoin is one of the most reliable shields against inflation. Yes, my stand is arguable because it is highly volatile but its total cap of 21 million is its unique difference. The market can be flooded with gold because many nations of the world still have massive gold reserves. Lands and other resources are limitless which means that their prices can fall if the supply rises but bitcoin has limited supply. A single country with a large gold reserve can make the market crumble but Bitcoin is decentralised. Yes, the market can be manipulated by some unhealthy practices by whales but their influence is limited. If Bitcoin gains a stable price in the future, it will become an undisputed hedge against inflation.

Well, it's a pretty interesting topic and it has a bit of a similarity to the conversation I had with the kids in my family, where they asked the question "who is the richest in the world?", and honestly I don't know, with the OP's share it's somewhat like, in the past we are not entirely sure that we know of people who used to have a lot of money to be the richest ( the common thing is that they are all very rich) . And I know there are some very interesting stories about getting rich and sharing success with others.

He has included that in the table already, unless you mean something different.

Amen.

It's also worth adding that each of us very likely has much higher comfort of life than any of the ancient rulers. That's simply due to technological progress, access to running water, sewage systems, electricity, and most of all - to nutrition and modern medicine (the last one is much overrated but still).

Interesting, was King Solomon for real and could have been part of the list? Because with those that I've read before says that he's probably the richest even til' now. I don't know but those weren't able to provide proof though. But it's interesting to see on how these people have been too wealthy since the ancient times and able to mitigate inflation yet or when it was too little. Can imagine that if they're still alive right now, they are still not going to be problematic on how to deal with inflation. LOL, the reality has slapped me once again that there's more to life and there's a need to be more pushy in everything we does to achieve financial freedom.

Interesting...
Op please add more details of the period & timeline if possible in the table. I have also analyzed a few of such documents in my native language but the point is what they are worth now .. 0 ... what they have now is Nothing..

This represents the most beautiful and unpalatable truth of life that it will end. Money is really not everything A bit off-topic but quite realatable.

Thanks for an interesting topic.

The problem with those historic wealth estimations is there is a chance they can be completely inaccurate. Positions 1 and 3 are incalculable so not sure how are they ranked in those places. In the case of the rulers, there's often no distinction between personal wealth and the wealth of the entire empire, so we end up comparing apples to oranges.

I had no clue Henry Ford was that rich. He was a decent guy from what I know.


You can't colonise a successful and well-run country, such would have to be conquered. Colonies were established where there in underdeveloped or unpopulated areas. I'm not an expert on African history but believe most of the African empires fall on their own or due to infighting.

I am not sure about the others and what happened to them but I know a bit about Mansa Musa and Akbar I. Both of them were best kings of their time and their wealth was unlimited due to the fact that they had access to treasures throughout the region where they ruled their dynasty.

The problem started when colonies started to form from the European countries. In case of Akbar I, it took lot of time since there were mixed colonisation from around the world in different kingdoms.

However, it is said that in case of Musa, they came in quickly since the region was very small. They were able to destroy it just like they did in the fairly modern world.

I believe you must have made some research to have discovered a number of these elites ones the richest but unfortunately enough none of them today is being recognized as rich fellow any longer, well many reasons might have been attributed to this because of how the economy was during their own time, some might have died, while some still leaving couldn't have been able to maintain their riches not to talk of transferring them to their children, there are many demands it requires in making one rich and sustaining the riches over generations, i don't know how many richest men of this present dispensation women will still be mentioned in decades to come.

I was watching a documentary associated with historical economies and the richest people.

You will be shocked to see how much money these people had during the period when having thousands of USD was worth millions to billions in todays conversion rate!

I am going to list them from the lowest to highest. If you love it, then do checkout the Top #1 richest man ever lived and it's definitely mind wobbling how he lived and how much his wealth was.

Rank	Name of the Person	Period	Wealth in $$
#10	Henry Ford	1863-1947	$199 billion
#09	Muammar Gaddafi	1942-2011	200 billion
#08	William The Conqueror	1027-1087	$229.5 billion
#07	Mir Osman Ali Khan	1886-1967	$230 billion
#06	Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov	1868-1918	$300 billion
#05	John D Rockefeller	1839-1937	$341 billion
#04	Andrew Carnegie	1835-1919	$372 billion
#03	Akbar I	1542-1605	Wealth incalculable
#02	Augustus Caesar	63 BC-AD 14	$4.6 trillion
#01	Mansa Musa	1280-1337	Wealth incalculable

The king Mansa Musa was the one with incalculable wealth while Akbar was the another person in line to be that much rich.

Musa seems to be popularly known because he was the only richest person who donated so much Gold that it caused the gold rates drop heavily and caused hyperinflation in the Egypt. It was so high that it took almost 10 years to recover from this inflation.

Guess how the inflation was controlled? Well, Musa himself bought back the Gold at higher interest rate and thus helped the Egyptians to control their inflations. Even with the help of higher interest rate and buying back the gold it took ten years so we can imagine how enormous this inflation was.

He was so rich that during his commute from the Mali kingdom to Haj, they carried 60,000 people along with them and every time they stopped on Friday they built mosques and stays everywhere.

They donated gold to every city they roamed through and finally it was Egypt where they stayed for long and caused the inflation just by donating the Gold bars.

This is one of the interesting fact that I learnt in the Economic section and hence wanted to share it as fun story. Crazy!!!!

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References:
The history rich list: the 10 wealthiest people ever
Not Jeff Bezos Or Elon Musk, These 11 People Are The Richest People In Human History