# How much liquidity do the world’s billionaires generally have? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 9, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-liquidity-do-the-world-s-billionaires-generally-have/841547 "2019-10-09T19:40:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-liquidity-do-the-world-s-billionaires-generally-have/841547/21 "2019-10-10T11:31:10Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I see no reason to infer that financial institutions lend any more recklessly against restricted stock than they do against other assets. Restricted stock may not be a lottery ticket, it covers a range of possible situations. I was being facetious. I hope banks would not take stocks of questionable value or unsalable on a practical basis. But I am surprised if there are no regulations in this area. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-liquidity-do-the-world-s-billionaires-generally-have/841547/22 "2019-10-10T11:40:41Z")
OP should recall that wealth is a spooky thing. Some tens of trillions of dollars vanished (in the US) during the last recession and even more has been created since. It didn’t go anywhere or come from anywhere. Depending on who the “richest of the rich” are, converting any of that wealth to cash becomes more difficult the more of it you try to move. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-liquidity-do-the-world-s-billionaires-generally-have/841547/23 "2019-10-10T15:06:22Z")
I assume by “restricted stock” we mean stocks awarded, say, as bonus or such with the proviso “cannot be sold for X years”. The implication being sooner or later they can be sold. Meanwhile, I assume any collateral arrangement would likely include things like "can take dividends to apply against overdue payments, etc. Maybe even “can dictate stockholder vote choices if loan is overdue”. But basically, there’s a dollar amount risk discount associated with “we have an asset that cannot be sold for X years”. I suppose the other question too is - how much of the stocks and bonds held in the world economy - the North American economy - are held by the 1%ers? My impression is that far more is held by assorted funds - insurance companies, pension and retirement savings funds, assorted other mutual funds… Like the point about Amazon being only 16% Bezos - probably the majority of funds are held by institutions. If you have decent 401k or such - that’s stocks and bonds, and those are the funds that would buy whatever Bezos or Gates or Buffet tried to sell. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-liquidity-do-the-world-s-billionaires-generally-have/841547/24 "2019-10-10T17:52:10Z")
[Credit Suisse has a Global Wealth Report](https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html) with some useful data presented in plain language. From the 2018 report: Total Global Wealth is $317 Trillion. High and Ultra-High net-worth individuals: 149,890 people with \> $50 million in assets 50,230 \> $100 million 4,390 \> $500 million They don’t list billionaires, but that progression is (as you’d expect it to be) exponential with a ~1/3 reduction with every net worth doubling, so we can make a pretty good guess that there’d be about 1500 billionaires [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2019/03/05/press-release-forbes-33rd-annual-worlds-billionaires-issue-reveals-number-of-billionaires-and-their-combined-wealth-have-decreased-for-for-first-time-since-2016/) says there are just over 2000 billionaires in the world, with total wealth about $8 trillion. So even if _every_ billionaire sold off all their assets, it’s less than 3% of global wealth. There are still plenty of buyers out there. ---
**Author:** ![garxie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@garxie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garxie)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-liquidity-do-the-world-s-billionaires-generally-have/841547/25 "2019-10-11T00:42:52Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > Yes it would be vital of Bezos or Gates to announce **beforehand** that they were liquidating their shares to donate to the proceeds to charity in order to mitigate a complete devaluation of Amazon or Microsoft stock respectively. I am sure that there would still be some devaluation but as long as they were forthcoming and assured people **beforehand** that they have complete confidence in the companies it would not be as bad if they just decided to start dumping their shares on the open market. In fact, Bill Gates has unloaded over 35 billion worth of Microsoft stock over the years and it doesn’t seem to have lowered investor confidence at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-liquidity-do-the-world-s-billionaires-generally-have/841547.md?page=1)