What Is It Like to Lose $100 Million a Day?

2008年11月14日

If you are feeling bad about your 401(k) losses, consider the case of Sheldon Adelson. His investments have declined by more than $30 billion, yes with a 'b,' in the past year.

Put another way, his net worth declined by about $100 million a day, or $4.1 million an hour, or $69,000 a minute, or $1,157 a second.

It is possible Mr. Adelson now may hold the title for the largest one-year paper loss in U.S. history.

A graphic in Vanity Fair last month showing the biggest stock-market losers had Warren Buffett down about $16 billion. The Walton kids were down a combined $21 billion. The Google guys were each down about $12 billion, as was Bill Gates. (Overseas, there are some even more impressive, er, losers, such as Lakshmi Mittal racking up more than 20 billion pounds in paper losses, but for the purposes of this post, let's stick to the U.S.).

Even looking further back in history, it is hard to find personal wealth destruction quite like Adelson's. In the Great Depression, the Rockefeller's lost about half their wealth, totaling about $1 billion. But that was over a period of years, and even adjusting for inflation about 14 times 1930 dollars that loss is pocket change compared with that of Mr. Adelson.

What is more, while the losses of Messrs. Buffett, Brin, Page and Gates represent a fraction of their wealth, Mr. Adelson's net worth has shrunk a staggering 93%.

Lest we break out the violins, Mr. Adelson still had enough cash to pour nearly $1 billion in cash into his company in recent months. And Hank Greenberg, despite complaining about losing most of his wealth in American International Group stock, still has a private jet, a pad on Park Avenue and a vacation home in Switzerland.

Nonetheless, it is hard to recall a time of such a rapid, severe destruction of personal wealth as the past six months.

Do Wealth Report readers know of any other fallen fortunes (in the course of a year) that rival Mr. Adelson's?

Robert Frank

富豪财富缩水大比拚

果你还在为自己的401(k)计划损失心痛不已，不妨想想谢尔登·阿德尔森(Sheldon Adelson)的遭遇聊以自慰。过去一年，这位仁兄的投资缩水了300多亿美元；没错，是数百亿美元。

Getty Images

每天都和1亿美元说再见的阿德尔森

换句话说，这相当于他的资产净值每天蒸发大约1亿美元，每小时下降410万美元，每分钟缩水69,000美元，每秒钟损失1,157美元。

阿德尔森可能会因此"荣膺"美国历史上单年最大帐面损失榜冠军。

根据《名利场》(Vanity Fair)杂志上个月的股市大输家排行榜，沃伦·巴菲特(Warren Buffett)的损失高达160亿美元。沃尔顿(Walton)家族的资产总计损失了210亿美元。谷歌(Google)两位创始人每人损失了大约120亿美元，比尔·盖茨(Bill Gates)的损失大体也是这个数字。（海外一些富豪的损失更为夸张，例如亨拉克希米·米塔尔(Lakshmi Mittal)的帐面损失了超过200亿英镑；但就本文而言，我们还是集中关注美国吧。）

就算回溯历史，也很难找到个人财富损失规模能与阿德尔森相提并论的。洛克菲勒(Rockefeller)家族在大萧条时期财富损失近半，总计10亿美元左右。但这可是在数年之内损失的，即便考虑到通货膨胀因素（以1930年美元价值计算，这个数字需要乘以14倍左右），这点损失与阿德尔森比起来仍是相形见绌。

而且，登上身价缩水排行榜的诸位富豪－－巴菲特、布林(Brin)和佩奇(Page)以及盖茨的财产都不过是损失了一小部分，但阿德尔森净资产则暴跌了令人咂舌的93%。

不过，阿德尔森仍然拥有充足现金，最近几个月他刚向自己公司注入了将近10亿美元现金。尽管汉克·格林伯格(Hank Greenberg)抱怨他的大部分财富都损失在了美国国际集团(AIG)，但他仍然拥有私人飞机，在公园大道拥有公寓，在瑞士还有度假屋。

尽管如此，很难回想起什么时期个人财富会像过去6个月这样急剧蒸发了。

本文读者们，你们还知道谁的财富缩水规模（当然是一年范围内）可以与阿德尔森一较高下？

Robert Frank