Something Extra: Wealth Beyond Imagination
MIAMI (CBS4) - Who was the richest person who ever lived?
An inflation-adjusted study out this week says it's someone you never heard of.
King Mansa Musa ruled the Mali Empire in the fourteenth century and amassed a four hundred billion dollar fortune in today's dollars, because his country produced half of the world's gold and salt. It's proof that wealth is fleeting. Mali is now one of the world's poorest countries.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his family took second with three hundred fifty billion, follow closely by John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and the last emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas the second.
Moammar Qaddafi made the list in eighth place.
No women made the top twenty five, but fourteen Americans did. At his peak, Bill Gates was the richest living person on the list at twelfth, but Forbes Magazine says Mexican mogul Carlos Slim, twenty second on the list, is richer now.
Warren Buffet squeezed onto the list in twenty fifth, rich as Croesus; actually, richer, because the Greek didn't make the cut.
But the Oracle of Omaha's wealth is still such, that Mansa Musa's Mali in today's world would have to bank every penny of four years of its GDP to reach Buffett's net worth.
