Mitt Romney is worth $250 million. Why so little? (Here's a new tack)

The Washington Post ^ | October 5, 2012 | William D. Cohan

[2ndDivisionVet]

Mitt Romney is indisputably a very rich man. And if he is elected president on Nov. 6, he will become one of the wealthiest people ever to hold the office.

But exactly how wealthy is Romney? The figure that gets tossed around is $250 million in net worth — meaning the total value of his assets, financial and others, minus any debts.

It’s a big number, but frankly, it seems low. Given the industry in which he made his fortune (private equity), the era when he made it (the 1980s and 1990s) and the wealth of his peers in that business (mostly billionaires), Romney should be worth a good bit more than that.

Why isn’t he?

No surprise, Romney has not made it easy to figure out the precise size of his fortune, and any inferences drawn from the available data are necessarily speculative — yet they still, I think, say something about the man who would be president.

We know that Romney’s fortune derives in large part from his founding in 1984 of Bain Capital, one of the premier private-equity firms in the world, which he ran for the next 15 years or so, during a boom time for the industry...

[Vendome]

Whatevuh. He’z still gotz Private Jet money and though it’s not FU money(only because he doesn’t talk like that) it’s enough to allow him to throw away a bar of soap after he wears the letters off....

[2ndDivisionVet]

One of the Hollywood producers gives away his Levi 501 jeans after he’s worn them once. He never washes them because it changes the fit, or some such.

[JIM O]

We will never really know what he is worth and who cares anyway? Its clear how he lives his life and how important his charitable giving is to him. How many Americans can say their charitable giving is their biggest expense?

One thing is for sure, he and all of us would be far more well off in a no-Obama economy.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

If he were perceived as the first real billionaire to run for president, it would only exacerbate popular doubts about how someone living so removed from the concerns of average Americans — or even just 47 percent of them — could effectively represent them.

And if he is not a billionaire, doesn’t it suggest that he was not a great private-equity investor after all, thus torpedoing his claim to understand how to create jobs and get the economy back on track?

"Whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the marketplace, who call unto their fellows and say, We piped unto you and ye would not dance, we wailed, and ye did not mourn."

And Ronald Reagan was an actor, and you can’t take him seriously - and he was only a “B” movie actor at that . . .

[muawiyah]

How shall we say it ~ nicely ~ Kerry married money ~ big money ~ and to marry big money you need to be able to put forward a very large and positive personality point or two ~ on command!

[tsowellfan]

250 Million! If I had that I could get a year’s supply of motor oil for my Ford Fiesta!

[IM2MAD]

I hope the taxpayers don’t get stuck with staffing and maintaining the Hawaii abode. I’d like to see Michelle and the girls dust, vacuum and clean toilets like the rest of us.

[Gay State Conservative]

It’s a big number, but frankly, it seems low. Given the industry in which he made his fortune (private equity), the era when he made it (the 1980s and 1990s) and the wealth of his peers in that business (mostly billionaires), Romney should be worth a good bit more than that. Why isn’t he?

Taxes paid...Federal,state,local? Charitable contributions?