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Richest Presidents

February 20, 2012 by · Comments Off on Richest Presidents 

Richest Presidents, After months of speculation, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently confirmed that he is worth roughly $200 million — give or take a million or more. In addition to being worth more than 99.9 percent of Americans, if elected president, Romney would also be wealthier than any president except one.

While the other Republican candidates are also millionaires, their wealth does not come close to that of Romney’s. Still, judging from the net worth of all presidential nominees, politicians need to be wealthy to run for high office.

The others made their money more directly from their politics before becoming a presidential candidate. Libertarian candidate Ron Paul, worth between $2.5 and $5 million, has published a number of best-selling books over the past few years, each of which explores his political ideology. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich became a consultant and political analyst after he resigned from office. According to estimates, he has earned at least $6.5 and as much as $31 million. Rick Santorum, who worked as a consultant and contributor to Fox News, is worth more than $1 million.

24/7 Wall St. examined the finances of all 43 presidents. Unlike today’s candidates, the net worth of the presidents varies widely. George Washington was worth over half a billion in today’s dollars, while other presidents went bankrupt.

The fortunes of America’s presidents are tied to the economy of their time. As the focus of the economy changed, so has the way the presidents made their money.

It’s not surprising then to find the first few presidents — from Washington’s election to about 75 years later — as large landowners. They generally made money from land, crops and commodity speculation. Of course, this left them highly vulnerable to poor crop yields, and they could lose most or all of their properties because of a few bad years. Similarly, they could lose all of their money through land speculation — leveraging the value of one piece of land to buy additional property.

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