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Wealthier than the Queen of England? Wealthier than the Saudi Royal Family? Wealth stops making sense for heads of state because it's wrapped up in politics an

Wealthier than the Queen of England? Wealthier than the Saudi Royal Family? Wealth stops making sense for heads of state because it's wrapped up in politics and tradition. Vladimir can't come to Austin Texas on a whim and buy himself a mess of grouper and bourbon. I can. I'm here now. I traveled here from Toronto on a whim. Is he is wealthier than I am? The answer is still obviously yes, but it starts to get fuzzy vs people like Elon Musk who have functionally more freedom and massive amounts of assets.

actuator 5y ago
Well, for one Queen of England(queen of a lot of other nations as well) doesn't have any power like say what Saudi King or Putin has. She is a mere ceremonial head. Also, from what I have read, the estimates of her wealth doesn't even make her a billionaire.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  I think she is worth about £350 million private wealth but the British Monarchy as an entity is worth about £70billion so a lot more than Putin's reported £18billion. The Queen is reportedly also able to spend 15% of the Crown Estate which holds about about £10billion in land assets. Prince Philip was paid half a million a year by Govt and the Queen is paid £65million a year. https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/royals/queen-elizabeth-net-worth-royal-family-wealth-money-a4260986.html https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/royals/queen-elizabeth-ne... On the point of power, she is the law in the UK, as head of state she is the top, so whilst she has never exercised her powers to cancel Govt, she has the legal authority to do this. She also receives weekly updates from not only the Prime Minister, but she also gets weekly updates from the heads of the arm forces, security services and other heads of public entities. So when considering her Royal Advisors, these are perhaps best seen as a form of long running Shadow Govt not to be confused with the Govt opposition parties, so she can influence govt overtly and covertly, in much the same way as a teacher might make a passing remark to a pupil, or another person in a position of authority making a comment to an inferior. Its subtle but right there on display, with nothing to hide because people dont recognise the psychological Obedience to Authority.
  - actuator 5y ago
    > so whilst she has never exercised her powers to cancel Govt, she has the legal authority to do this. Yeah, my point was more on the lines of, she doesn't use that power, making her a ceremonial head unlike the other two. I think this is one of those things, where if she does exercise her power even for cancelling a resolution passed by the commons, it would immediately lead to public outcry. It might even mean eventually throwing away the monarchy. Even for something major as Brexit, we don't know what she thought of it, there was an outfit she wore that was speculated to show her support of the EU, but I remember that was it. > British Monarchy as an entity is worth about £70billion Does this come from the assets they hold? As far as I remember, they don't own some of those outright. They get a share of the revenue those things make.
    - 3pt14159 5y ago
      No, the Monarchy does use its power. It has in Canada multiple times. Anyway, not going to keep debating this. Wealth is something that can be reasoned about when an individual doesn't have serious security concerns and when an individual doesn't have meaningful coercive power through use of force. But a billionaire in a new communist state isn't really a billionaire any more than a despotic dictator is since they can't really retain the wealth absent ongoing action and so much of the assets under their command belong to the state. I'll put it another way, if Russia has a democratic uprising like Ukraine did, who will own Putin's giant mansion. It's obviously not Putin. Real billionaires can move the vast majority of their assets out of a country without anyone seriously putting up a fight.
FpUser 5y ago
You think like a normal person. I for example can not fathom how anyone can want to be a politician. Yet people do and they have their own kicks out of it. So I do not think Putin is jealous of Musk. As for your grouper - they have enough exotic places and exotic food in Russia as long as you have money to pay.
throwaway09223 5y ago
He's a lot wealthier than both the Queen and bin Talal (wealthiest Saudi) put together. The Queen isn't even a billionaire. He's not free as of a few days ago, but he's vastly more wealthy.
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  You're basically making my point for me. The Queen of England is the theoretical owner of most of the land in all of Canada. Take a look at this map of Ontario, for example: https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/140865732363/crown-lands-in-ontario-via-reddit-more-after https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/140865732363/crown-l... It doesn't make sense to compare or consider heads of states' wealth. They can't spend like a true billionaire and they have powers that billionaires do not. They can order the death of almost any human being on earth without worrying about security. It makes more sense to talk of power differentials between heads of state and heads of government than it does mere cash.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The Queen of England is the theoretical owner of most of the land in all of Canada. No, the Queen of Canada is. Given the nature of the respective constitutional monarchies, the distinction is significant, even though those crowns are held by the same natural person. > It doesn't make sense to compare or consider heads of states' wealth. It doesn't make sense to treat the wealth held by a constitutional monarchy the same as personal wealth of the monarch, but with either absolute monarchies or heads of state who don't have any abstract claim on the wealth of the nation or state as such, those issues don't arise, and even with Constitutional monarchs the personal wealth of the monarch as distinct from that controlled by the State in the name of the monarch can be discussed with little problem.
  - throwaway09223 5y ago
    > The Queen of England is the theoretical owner No, she isn't. The crown holdings haven't been owned privately for hundreds of years.
- tartoran 5y ago

actuator 5y ago

Well, for one Queen of England(queen of a lot of other nations as well) doesn't have any power like say what Saudi King or Putin has. She is a mere ceremonial head. Also, from what I have read, the estimates of her wealth doesn't even make her a billionaire.

Terry_Roll 5y ago
I think she is worth about £350 million private wealth but the British Monarchy as an entity is worth about £70billion so a lot more than Putin's reported £18billion. The Queen is reportedly also able to spend 15% of the Crown Estate which holds about about £10billion in land assets. Prince Philip was paid half a million a year by Govt and the Queen is paid £65million a year. https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/royals/queen-elizabeth-net-worth-royal-family-wealth-money-a4260986.html https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/royals/queen-elizabeth-ne... On the point of power, she is the law in the UK, as head of state she is the top, so whilst she has never exercised her powers to cancel Govt, she has the legal authority to do this. She also receives weekly updates from not only the Prime Minister, but she also gets weekly updates from the heads of the arm forces, security services and other heads of public entities. So when considering her Royal Advisors, these are perhaps best seen as a form of long running Shadow Govt not to be confused with the Govt opposition parties, so she can influence govt overtly and covertly, in much the same way as a teacher might make a passing remark to a pupil, or another person in a position of authority making a comment to an inferior. Its subtle but right there on display, with nothing to hide because people dont recognise the psychological Obedience to Authority.
- actuator 5y ago
  > so whilst she has never exercised her powers to cancel Govt, she has the legal authority to do this. Yeah, my point was more on the lines of, she doesn't use that power, making her a ceremonial head unlike the other two. I think this is one of those things, where if she does exercise her power even for cancelling a resolution passed by the commons, it would immediately lead to public outcry. It might even mean eventually throwing away the monarchy. Even for something major as Brexit, we don't know what she thought of it, there was an outfit she wore that was speculated to show her support of the EU, but I remember that was it. > British Monarchy as an entity is worth about £70billion Does this come from the assets they hold? As far as I remember, they don't own some of those outright. They get a share of the revenue those things make.
  - 3pt14159 5y ago
    No, the Monarchy does use its power. It has in Canada multiple times. Anyway, not going to keep debating this. Wealth is something that can be reasoned about when an individual doesn't have serious security concerns and when an individual doesn't have meaningful coercive power through use of force. But a billionaire in a new communist state isn't really a billionaire any more than a despotic dictator is since they can't really retain the wealth absent ongoing action and so much of the assets under their command belong to the state. I'll put it another way, if Russia has a democratic uprising like Ukraine did, who will own Putin's giant mansion. It's obviously not Putin. Real billionaires can move the vast majority of their assets out of a country without anyone seriously putting up a fight.

FpUser 5y ago

You think like a normal person. I for example can not fathom how anyone can want to be a politician. Yet people do and they have their own kicks out of it. So I do not think Putin is jealous of Musk. As for your grouper - they have enough exotic places and exotic food in Russia as long as you have money to pay.

throwaway09223 5y ago

He's a lot wealthier than both the Queen and bin Talal (wealthiest Saudi) put together. The Queen isn't even a billionaire. He's not free as of a few days ago, but he's vastly more wealthy.

3pt14159 5y ago
You're basically making my point for me. The Queen of England is the theoretical owner of most of the land in all of Canada. Take a look at this map of Ontario, for example: https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/140865732363/crown-lands-in-ontario-via-reddit-more-after https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/140865732363/crown-l... It doesn't make sense to compare or consider heads of states' wealth. They can't spend like a true billionaire and they have powers that billionaires do not. They can order the death of almost any human being on earth without worrying about security. It makes more sense to talk of power differentials between heads of state and heads of government than it does mere cash.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The Queen of England is the theoretical owner of most of the land in all of Canada. No, the Queen of Canada is. Given the nature of the respective constitutional monarchies, the distinction is significant, even though those crowns are held by the same natural person. > It doesn't make sense to compare or consider heads of states' wealth. It doesn't make sense to treat the wealth held by a constitutional monarchy the same as personal wealth of the monarch, but with either absolute monarchies or heads of state who don't have any abstract claim on the wealth of the nation or state as such, those issues don't arise, and even with Constitutional monarchs the personal wealth of the monarch as distinct from that controlled by the State in the name of the monarch can be discussed with little problem.
- throwaway09223 5y ago
  > The Queen of England is the theoretical owner No, she isn't. The crown holdings haven't been owned privately for hundreds of years.
tartoran 5y ago