Man, economics is tough to figure out.
At the time I was gonna post this article (sometime yesterday) Marcus Crassus was the richest person to have ever lived, with an estimated modern value of his wealth at 7 TRILLION dollars. Some weird numbers have crunched, and he's now at Number 8, with a modern value of 181 billion dollars. What's weird is that it's the same 10 people for the most part, but their positions keep shifting, based on equations that sound like complete gibberish to me (I didn't realize the value of Roman Sesterces were still taken into account in modern economic formulae).
Anyway, I just figured that with these shaky economic times, it would be fun to take a look at the 10 people who have made, for lack of a better word, a straight-up stupid amount of money. As in, Bill Gates' entire net worth is less than 1/3 of the net worth of NUMBER 10.
Not that all of these individuals were allowed to enjoy their successes. One of the top 10 was the ill-fated Czar Nicolas II, who was executed by the Bolsheviks. For some reason, it surprises me that only one other of the top 10 was drug out and killed; that being our previously mentioned friend Marcus Crassus.
Legend has it that he was captured by the Parthinians (modern-day Iranians) and had molten silver poured down his throat to "soothe his thirst for wealth"...
Remember, though... this dude was the bad guy in "Spartacus", not just in film, but in real life too.
