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In the introductory section, they say -- in italics -- "One of the most important conclusions of this analysis is that the presidency has little to do with weal
by gjm11 16y ago
In the introductory section, they say -- in italics -- "One of the most important conclusions of this analysis is that the presidency has little to do with wealth."
And then they list 43 presidents' net worth; their lowest (and quite sparsely populated) category is "less than $1M" and from a quick glance I think the median is somewhere around $10M.
Yup, sure looks to me as if the presidency has little to do with wealth.
(Perhaps what they mean is that there's no single simple strong connection: being president doesn't mean that you instantly become rich, and also doesn't require you to have been rich first. Well, sure, but so what?)
- andywood 16y agoI agree - as worded, that sounds ridiculous. A majority of them were multi-millionaires according to the list. As if you would encounter such a thing in a random sampling of 43 people! I wonder what they meant by that line.
- coderdude 16y agoI assumed they meant that the quality of their term as president wasn't a factor in their wealth.
- tomjen3 16y agoThe presidents are hardly a random sample of 43 people. They represent some of the best people of their generation, so you would expect them to have more money than the average person.
- seldo 16y agoIt's a little misleading, since many of the figures were calculated after they left office -- being president opens lucrative book and speaking opportunities (for instance, and surprisingly to me at least, most of Nixon's wealth came from the Frost/Nixon interviews). Barack Obama appears on the list as the poorest US president since Truman, but that's only because his earnings after he leaves office haven't happened yet.
- pkulak 16y agoTruman was also the last president to not receive a salary for life. I always thought it was interesting that until Truman, it was never an issue. Every previous president was loaded. Then, when congress saw their most recent ex-president driving around the country in near poverty, they immediately realized that was a little embarrassing.