Hahah
I’ve seen your box 'cos it’s next to mine.
I’ve got more than you, only 12p but it’s still more 
In terms of an answer, I would surmise that Bill gates could probably land at his bank and extract as much money as he liked. I know if I had a fraction of the money he has, I would DEFINATLEY have a Scrooge McDuck style vault out th’ back, just to mess around in. I had a thread a while back as to who led the most Oppulent lifestyle, as in who wipes there arse with fifties and walks on rose petals like in coming to america… I think the answer was the sultan of Brunai.
This has been true certainly since countries went off the gold standard (mostly around the time of the Great Depression) and in reality for much longer.
The point of a bank for a very long time was a depository of money from which loans could be made. Since money went out in large sums and came back in multiple small payments plus interest, banks soon found that a fixed amount of money could be loaned over and over provided that nobody defaulted on their loans. The rule of thumb was that a bank could lend out about five times the amount of money it had on deposit. As long as there have been great banking houses the amount of money in use was always far larger than the amount printed by governments.
You can think of stocks and bonds in much the same way. The money that goes to a corporation is paid out to suppliers and workers, each of whom uses the money or invests it or banks it or loans it out. Government treasury securities allow the government to put huge amounts of money into circulation without having to print it up, keeping inflation low.
This is the reason that orthodox economists scoff at those who call for a return to a tangibly-backed currency, whether it’s gold or anything else. The size of the world economy is enormously larger than any particular asset. Currency is what’s minted or printed. “Money” is an intangible. The people who first understood that and understand it best today are the richest. The poor are those who have to work with whatever the paper in their pocket is worth. That’s why they’ll always be poor.
Why do you think that’s limited to the “super wealthy”? Anyone with a credit card can buy something on credit. The difference is that creditors tend to charge higher interest rates to people they think are less likely to pay it back.
Also, ROI is Return on Investment. It’s basically a measurement of how well an investment paid off, not the interest rate on a credit purchase.
The M1 money supply in the U.S. in August was approximately $1.4 trillion. The M1 is a measure of cash, travelers checks, money in checking accounts and similar liquid assets.
Note that this is only a fraction of “money” out there. It doesn’t include money in savings accounts, CD’s, bonds, money market accounts or other accounts that we might consider “ready cash.” The M2 is approximately five times the M1.
The same table shows that the amount of currency in circulation in August was about $742 billion – only about half the M1.
If we assume all the assets are spread out evenly, we get cash=1/2M1=1/5M2. This puts the amount of actual currency available at approximately 10% of the actual “money” supply. And this doesn’t include investments like stocks, long-term bonds, real estate, etc.
Bill Gates is regarded as the richest person in the world. The article listed his net worth at about $40 billion.
So IF Gates decided to sell off all his assets and IF selling everything at once didn’t crash the market (and thus reduce his net worth) there’s enough currency out there to supply Bill Gates with his entire fortune in cash.
And that’s about as close as you’ll get to a correct answer.
That article is three years old and Bill has added $10 billion since then. Bill is still clearly in first place, but the rest of the list has changed somewhat. The 2006 list cites as the ten richest people:
- Bill Gates, USA, software, $50 billion
- Warren Buffett, USA, financial investments, $42 billion
- Carlos Helu, Mexico, telecommunications, $30 billion
- Ingvar Kamrad, Sweden, furniture (Ikea), $28 billion
- Lakshmi Mittal, United Kingdom, steel, $23.5 billion
- Paul Allen, USA, software, $22 billion
- Bernard Arnault, France, upscale consumer goods, $21.5 million
- Prince Alwaleed Ben Talal Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia, banking and property, $20 billion
- Ken Thompson, Canada, publishing and media, $20 billion
- Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong, investments, $18 billion
I would guess that the M1 money supply of any of the countries listed above could allow the people on this list to withdraw all their money and put it in a really, really, really big duffel bag.
I’ve worked with some rather wealthy people in some large transactions. In terms of “cash”, it is rare that they will be required to come up with very large sums of “cash” (actually available checking account deposits that can be wired or used to obtain a certified or bank check) without at least about a week’s notice.
Most of the time, wealthy people will have a moderately small balance in their checking accounts, and most of the money they need for prompt availability in other forms of investments or accounts.
Most wealthy will have a “CMA” type brokerage account, in which they will hold securities (stocks, bonds, funds and other investment vehicles) and “cash.” A feature of these accounts is that any “cash” balance in the account at the end of any day is swept into a money market fund that day, so it is invested productively. If there is a need for cash for an investment or withdrawal, there is a redemption from the money market fund for the amount needed. Thus, when an investor says part of his portfolio is in “cash”, it really means a money market fund.
In addition to “cash” in their brokerage accounts, there are readily marketable securities. Most stocks and bonds listed on major exchanges can be readily sold on any day the market is open, and most ordinary mutual funds provide that they may be redeemed on any trading day at net market value. All of these types of funds can pretty easily be liquidated to available cash within a few days.
The very wealthy will likely have some portion of their investments in less liquid investments. Often some of the securities they own will be “restricted securities” because of the conditions in which they obtained it (e.g. private offering) or their position in connection with the company (e.g. officer, director or other insider). Other investments are in private funds and other investment vehicles which do not allow for prompt sale or disposition of the investment. In addition, many of the wealthy have a portion of their otherwise marketable investments in trusts, pension plans, and other arrangements which do not allow for quick disposition.
You are correct that most of the wealthiest individuals have a small portion of their overall wealth in readily marketable investments. For instance, a large portion of Bill Gates’ fortune is tied up in Microsoft stock for which cannot be immediately sold both because of securities laws restrictions on how much stock he can sell as an insider and holder of unregistered securities and because if he were to dump a large portion of his stock onto the market, it would severly depress the stock price. I’m sure that Mr. Gates has a program of regularly selling relative small portions of his Microsoft stock to obtain cash for other investments, but none of us have any ability to determine how much of his fortune is in marketable investments and how much is illiquid.
We don’t even know how much the “richest” people in the world are actually worth. The Forbes 400 and other listings are just estimates based in part on public reporting of stock holdings of those whose fortunes are largely in public companies where these things must be disclosed, and otherwise wild and speculative guesses of the worth of the others. It is simply impossible to determine who has the largest amount of readily marketable assets.
I don’t think that there is an answer that will strictly answer the OP’s question, either as originally framed, or as clarified. As far as who would have immediate (i.e., within 24 hours or less) access to the largest amount of cash, I have to agree with Iggins. After all, occasions can arise for them where they have to be able to pay enormous (perhaps millions of dollars) bribes on more or less immediate notice.
I dare say that many of them keep large quantities of cash spread among as many banks as possible. However, they also have need to keep significant (probably millions) readily accessible. And then there’s the cash that comes in daily(?) from their operations. I’d suspect that the heads of most of the dealers in illicit goods - and probably those who deal in drugs also deal in arms, and vice versa.
No doubt those who are at the top, and who have been there for a few years, also have large sums invested. But like all those who have criminal enterprises, they have need for instant access to large sums, also.
Then try to test them in the proper forum.
You constructed this question and qualified it so that it can’t be factually answered. Therefore, it’s off to MPSIMS. I don’t even think IMHO would do this one justice.
And I"m getting pretty tired of moving your more stupid questions out of General Questions. This ain’t your first day here. This isn’t the first time I’ve told you this. Try to think before you start your next OP.
samclem GQ moderator
Dubya.
For he who can destroy a thing controls it. 
The difference is that super rich people, like large corporations, can and often do use credit a lot more than the rest of us. It is typical for large companies to buy something, have the invoice on Accounts Payable, and pay it some time later. Large corporations do not keep cash (of any meaningful amount) lying around idle, their investors would not let them. If Microsoft needed cash for a project, they simply raise money on the commercial paper markets or set up revolving lines of credit with an investment bank. They don’t have “bank accounts” in the same way that you and I do. Rich PEOPLE are the same.
Unless you’re telling me that you regularly charge $100k+ purchases on your Visa card, this isn’t an option for normal people, so normal people need cash. Think of it this way: If Paris DID need cash, she can simply call a bank and set up a line of credit for a few $100ks. She doesn’t have to GIVE the bank a single dime to start off, she could be completely broke and have all her assets tied up in other investments. She can do that because she’s Paris Hilton, and that’s liquidity. Can you do the same?
No shit. Buying a new Aston is a pretty negative net NPV project no matter how you crunch it. I’m a poor person and I care about my ROIs, so what do you think I’d do if I had an extra $100k? I won’t be keeping it in a bank account, and I won’t be buying a new Aston, that’s what. 
Well, to put it another way then, could Gates or another billionaire walk into his bank and say “I would like like 300 million in cash.”
I know the bank would freak out, but could that amount of cash be made available? I mean literally 300 mil. What would they do? What denominations? Would it break the bank? How much would it weigh?
And yes I know the mega-rich don’t keep their money in the “bank” but what if they just wanted a pile of righteous bucks.
See Airman Doors answer. Banks don’t keep insanely massive amounts of cash on hand. A huge cash wihtdrawal is going to take planning and coordination, possibly days or weeks in the planning.
This correspondance from Larry Ellison’s accountant gives you an idea of the financial situation of the super rich.
Ken Thomson died earlier this year, so I guess he doesn’t qualify any longer (unless that is his son). Forbes quoted these (oldies article)
William Gates
Warren Buffett
Carlos Slim Helú
Ingvar Kamprad
Lakshmi Mittal
Paul Allen
Bernard Arnault
Prince Alwaleed
Kenneth Thomson
Li Ka-shing
The problem with keeping lots of cash in the bank–or in a huge vat, a la Scrooge McDuck–is that it’s taxed at an exhorbitant rate.
Right before he went on the lam, Saddam Hussein “withdrew” $2 billion in cash (US dollars and Euros) from the main bank in Baghdad. I know of no one who ever physically withdrew that much from a bank in person for his own personal use. He might be the surprising answer to the OP.
Well, isn’t it your job to move the proper questions to the proper forums? I run a message board and I have to do the same thing all the time, but I don’t go making snide remarks to my members when I do in fact have to move their threads. Especially since we are PAYING members.
I’m getting tired of you moderators moving my questions and threads to forums in which they don’t belong.
I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t cause any problems here and some of you guys are just plain…rude yourself. For no reason at all. I try to ask questions to educate myself and other people. How do I know there wasn’t a factual answer to my question? I wouldn’t of asked it if I had of known there wasn’t one.
Either way, I’ll try my best to remain on topic and in the proper forums.
Welcome to the SDMB, where snide remarks are the order of the day.
Further criticism of moderator actions belongs in the BBQ Pit. Please review the forum headers.
Please do.
And samclem, you missed MPSIMS with this one. You’re getting an official moderator-to-moderator-glare.
Seriously, I think it belonged here, and if only the OP would stay out of it, it would be quite an interesting discussion.