Who was the Richest President?

Mitt Romney’s net worth is estimated at $190 to $250 million. If he ends up defeating Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential election, how would his wealth rank against other presidents? Would he be the richest president of all time?

Who was the Richest President of all Time?

It turns out that Romney’s wealth falls well short of the richest president of all time. Adjusted for inflation, George Washington was worth a whopping $500 million! JFK would’ve beaten that record but he didn’t live long enough to inherit his father’s massive $1 billion fortune. The figures were compiled by 24/7 Wall Street so I can’t verify them. And frankly, the article’s commentary sheds some light on the author’s stunning historical and economic ignorance.

“(For the first 75 years after Washington’s election)…because there was no central banking system and no commodities regulatory framework, markets were subject to panics.”

Clearly, this writer has never heard of the Bank of North America or the First Bank of the United States or the Second Bank of the United States. And even more clearly, the writer has no understanding of the lessons taught by the Austrian Business Cycle. With that said, here’s more on the richest presidents of all time from 24/7 Wall Street:

The net worth of the presidents varies widely. George Washington was worth over half a billion in today’s dollars. Several presidents went bankrupt.

The fortunes of American presidents are tied to the economy in the eras in which they lived. For the first 75 years after Washington’s election, presidents generally made money on land, crops, and commodity speculation. A president who owned hundreds or thousands of acres could lose most or all of his property after a few years of poor crop yields. Wealthy Americans occasionally lost all of their money through land speculation—leveraging the value of one piece of land to buy additional property. Since there was no reliable national banking system and almost no liquidity in the value of private companies, land was the asset likely to provide the greatest yield, if the property yielded enough to support the costs of operating the farm or plantation…

(See the rest on the richest presidents at 24/7 Wall Street)

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