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Comment by moog | Hacker News Reader

That's an interesting question. Buffet is clearly the "world's richest man" measured by the criteria used by the author of this article. I suspect there are many people in the world who are 'richer', but we don't know about them because they operate in the 'black' economy or appear much further down the 'official' list.

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How many people do you think there are? You'd have to a) control vast resources or businesses, b) make sure no legit journalist in the entire world can tie you to it, and c) not care about achieving higher returns by investing in legitimate options, d) grow to that fortune without using mainstream investment options, and e) restrain your spending enough that you don't arouse suspicion. Not to mention that a huge, illicit fortune would be worth less than face value because it would be less liquid than a legitimate fortune.

Let's look at the top 3:

Buffet: started one of the most successful investment funds ever, which now owns most of Coca Cola and many insurance companies, among other giant, prominent copmanies

Helu: owns most of the telecom in Central and South America

Gates: started and ran the largest software company in the world, running on ~1B computers. Was one of the biggest business and technology success stories of the century.

You have to be prominent to get those big numbers.

I dunno, haven't trillions gone missing from the Pentagon budget? Who has all that money? I think it might be easier to hide immense wealth than you suggest. Granted, to do so would require extreme political power or approval, which is why the GP's question about Putin is so insightful.

Sure, even if you accept that $Ts have gone missing (not sure if I believe that they're missing, just poorly allocated to overpricing defense contractors), it would have to go to many, many people. I think it would be impossible to hide in America. It is a good point about Putin though. He's probably the only person I can think of in the world who could pull it off. Still, if the main source of wealth is oil, then it would be hard to hide from the world market, and essentially useless without including the world oil market. Same with any other natural resource - how would you hide 600M barrels of oil ($60B worth at current market price)? Or a mine with that many diamonds? Or a company with that much revenue?

It still doesn't answer the other question, why hide all that money? If you've got the billions, why not show them off? Or if you can't enjoy them, why bother embezzling them?

Maybe you're right that it would be impossible to hide this in America.

I don't like to get all conspiratorial, but have you read 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man'? If half of what Perkins writes is true, then maybe it wouldn't be so hard. He says that there is a parallel economic system in operation that most of us don't know about. If you were part of that world, you probably could flaunt your wealth... you just have to be sure it's hidden from the population at large.

Interesting looking book. Still, it sounds like big banks transferring big tax money to big companies. 3 big means that it can make a lot of people rich and drive a lot of business, but not necessarily create mega-billionaires.

I mean come on, for $65 billion, you could buy Oracle, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, or Apple (in 2006).

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/18/06f2000_The-Forbes-2000_...

Or try spending it on stuff - the most expensive house is ~$120 million (Mittal's house next to Buckingham Palace in London). The biggest yacht is ~$100 million. The entire "World" development in Dubai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(archipelago) ) cost $14B, and it's selling to some of the richest people in the world. You could buy every superlative in the world and still have most of your money leftover. When you get to that much money, the only thing you can't buy is bragging rights over the people above you on the Forbes list.

I believe that in the late 80's, two of the richest were a Colombian coke lord and a Japanese rail and real estate magnate. It's entirely possible that someone out there has quietly bought up a huge fraction of the rentable real estate in Shanghai or Hong Kong, for example, but doesn't want to disclose it. It's similarly possible that someone in Vietnam has stockpiled billions of dollars worth of heroin.

Unlikely, of course.

Possible, yes, but again, it would be very hard for one person to have all (or enough) of it.

I think it is hard to hide $63 or more billion.

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