Human beings, like all God’s creatures, need and want food, water, air, sleep, and sex, not always in that order. After that, humans mainly want to compare things. We compare stuff in the natural world, ourselves to inanimate objects, and (perhaps most fun of all) ourselves to each other. All the time.
To judge the total worth of a person is hard. We are a complex mixture of physical traits, spiritual values, internal thoughts, and external possessions. How can we summarize all those things accurately, so we can quickly compare them?
We could construct a matrix spreadsheet to list all the relevant qualities and quantities and then apply some algorithm to arrive at a final number to compare against someone else or something else. But that is very hard work, and will give most of us a splitting headache (if we could actually figure it out). And some people would undoubtedly argue about the specific measurement criteria.
So we have invented a powerful shorthand. Everybody in America knows it, and they can apply it from early childhood. We have a least common denominator (LCD) of comparison for human activity. It is money.
How much are you worth? How much is that car worth? How much is the business contract worth? How much does an actor get for a film? How much will you take for that couch and chair? How much is a lost life worth for insurance payout? Each is worth a different size pile of money (U.S. dollars, please). This pile is bigger than that pile, so it is worth more.
Now we can compare different people in a flash. Net worth (the value of your ownership interest in the stuff you have less the debt you carry) yields a single number that can be added, subtracted, or multiplied with relative ease. We can line people up in monetary rank order.
Now, it’s true that some stuff is hard to put a precise money value on (such as companionship, cuteness, team spirit), but the huge benefits of being able to compare so many different types of things using monetary value carries the day. Every American from childhood on knows how to recognize and handle money.
American love to keep score. We keep score about lifetime batting statistics, football games, horseraces, Oscar nominations, TV ratings, Twitter followers, and the Best School rankings. To compare people, we mostly use the money shortcut. My pile is bigger than his pile. Your pile is very small. I am a winner; you are a loser.
To keep track of really rich people we have a standard score card, which has been around and getting better and better for 34 years. Nearly everybody knows the Forbes 400, the list of the wealthiest Americans, published every year.
Donald Trump was listed in the very first edition, published in 1982. So we can follow his fortunes, and success, in shorthand up to the present.
We should be grateful to the staff and editors of Forbes Magazine, for their list is a treasure trove of good information about the really wealthy, where they live, how old they are, where their money comes from, and what they look like (passport type pictures). Most people are proud to be included on the list, though there are always some cranks.
Forbes does a terrific job by carefully evaluating all of a person’s assets and business holdings, and using standard business accounting practices, so the 400 sets of numbers are apples and apples, not apples and oranges. We can compare and contrast them.
The latest interactive version of the 2015 Forbes 400 list is easily found on the web. They have done a very nice job . Visit and browse often. The basic version is free.
Donald Trump is a real billionaire. Forbes has confirmed it, several times. Using the same rules for him as for all the other billionaires, his current net worth is $4.5 billion. This is a stunning number.
But he is not Number 1. In fact, he is not even close. He is number #121 among American billionaires. Actually, he is in a three-way tie with two women, Elizabeth Holmes (blood testing) and Ann Walton Kroenke (Wal-Mart). Remember this number: $4.5 billion.
The Forbes 400 list stops at #400, with a cutoff of $1.7 billion. There are 145 more American billionaires who don’t make the grade because they only have between $1.0 and 1.7 billion. Trump is better than them. He is also better than numbers #122 (5-way tie) through #400.
Picture Source: Forbes 400 Profile: Donald Trump
That’s the good news. The bad news for the ever striving Trump is that there are 120 Americans richer than he is, some by a whole lot. For example, #1 Bill Gates (Microsoft)) has $76 billion, #2 Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway) has $62 billion. Lots od other names you may be familiar with on the list have more too. #4 Jeff Bezos (Amazon) is worth $47billion; the #5 Koch Brothers (#%) $41 billion, #7 Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) $40.3 billion, and #8 Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg) $38.6 billion.
Three different Waltons of Wal-Mart are #12, #13, and #14 at $30 plus billion each.
Casino owner #15 Sheldon Adelson comes is at $26 billion. Computer guys #21 Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), #23 Michael Dell (Dell Computers), and #26 Paul Allen (Microsoft) each have more than $17 billion. #38 Rupert Murdock of Fox has $11.6 billion. That’s just in the Top 50.
Closer to Trump’s mid-size billionaire neighborhood is #108 Robert Craft (New England Patriots) at $4.8 billion, and #94 Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys) for $5 billion
Wait. Some of these rich people might not have earned all their money. It could be inherited, or because they live in a low-cost part of the country, or due to government tax-breaks, or gambling revenues, or taxpayer-funded sports subsidies.
Let’s look just at New Yorkers. How does Trump measure up against his peers? There are 69 New Yorkers on the list. Trump is 35th in net worth among this group. How about just New Yorkers in Real Estate? He does better, He makes 4th out of 9.
What about New Yorkers in Finance and Investments? There are 27 on the list. Trump is not included, since Forbes lists his industry as Real Estate, but he would be 9th , if he were to be considered a New York financier. What about New Yorkers in Media and Entertainment? Not so much. He would be in last place, 6th out of 6.
Among all New York billionaires he is 34th oldest, just about in the middle. Among New York Real Estate billionaires, Trump is the 2nd youngest of 9.
This litany begins to border on riches porn. The bottom line is that, in terms of his incredible pile of money, so far beyond the imaginings or ordinary Americans, to other billionaires, he is not really all that impressive. He is below the 25th percentile overall. Compared to the New York wealthy elite, he ranks just about at the 50th percentile. Among Real Estate tycoons he ranks one place above the middle, and as a financier about the 66% percentile. All told, a wealthy middling performance.
Trump has been heard to complain loudly and often that Forbes is unfair to him. He is worth much more, either $8.7 billion (sworn campaign financial disclosure) or “in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS”, while complaining about Forbes ranking method.
Here’s the thing. Forbes does not dislike Trump. They keep putting him on their list every year, instead of giving him a red card. They love billionaires. The Forbes 400 list is a big deal, and they are proud of it. The editors and staff spend a lot of time and money every year to get it right. Have you ever heard any other billionaire take to TV and Twitter to complain? Donald can’t take a no answer. He’s got kind of a temper problem, with a very short fuse.
Trump also has an incredible publicity amplifier to project his feelings. We all have heard now (many times) that he is a very smart person. He went to Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, the finest school. He has employed tens of thousands of workers. He builds great buildings. He is a negotiator so good he scares people. And he is an unparalleled deal maker. He has been in business since 1968, for 48 years, without significant health problems.
When Forbes compares him to all the rest of the billionaires in America, using the same criteria to rank each, why is Trump just about in the middle of the group of his peers, after running his company for almost 50 years? Why isn’t his pile of money bigger?
He is a rich and successful man. He could easily buy out thousands of ordinary Americans, without breaking a sweat. But why would other billionaires (or leaders of foreign countries, for that matter) pay that much attention to him or his negotiating positions, when they already have a much bigger pile than he does? The free market means they can pretty much ignore him or blow him off.
Bears thinking about….