Saturday, January 14, 2012

Are you richer than Rockefeller?

“Or consider this,” I said, “Who was the wealthiest man in America early in the 20th century?” “John D. Rockefeller,” said someone. “Right,” I said, “and at its peak, John D. Rockefeller’s net worth was, in today’s $, about $200 billion, which would make him richer than Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined.”
“But think what you have that he didn’t. He couldn’t watch TV, play video games, surf the Internet, or send e-mail. During the summer, he didn’t have air conditioning. For most of his life, he couldn’t travel by airplane. He didn’t even have [and here I picked up my cell phone] a 1G. And here’s the big one: If he got sick, he couldn’t use many medicines, including penicillin. Calvin Coolidge’s son, after playing tennis on the White House lawn and getting a blister, died. He didn’t have antibiotics.”
Found here:  http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/01/david-henderson-talks-to-the-occupy-folks.html

2 comments:

Andy said...

That is an excellent post.

I have often marveled at just how "rich" even the most normal of us are in the times in which we live.

Terri Wagner said...

I know it's against historical rules to compare your time with theirs. but wow.