> Half of Europe’s richest ten billionaires inherited fortunes spawned long ago; in America nine of the top ten are wealthy solely because of companies they fou

> Half of Europe’s richest ten billionaires inherited fortunes spawned long ago; in America nine of the top ten are wealthy solely because of companies they founded. Note the two differences in these regions. Specifically, population size of the respective country. There is an old quip that suggests family fortunes are squandered by the third generation, but a greater force of this would simply be how many people are there to an inheritance? France, for example, only doubled in population size from 1790 to 2021. The United States, on the other hand, went from a population of 1,000,000 to a population of 330,000,000 from 1790 to 2021. Its more likely that people aren't irresponsible with fortunes en masse, and that it simply dilutes when people pop out too many babies. Maybe you would like to compare to the entire European subcontinent, be my guest. I don't think thats necessary as the United States region was basically empty as it expanded west. The people that were already there had already been undergoing a multi-century decimation by the time the union expanded.