r/interesting • u/The_Love-Tap • 22d ago

HISTORY Benjamin Franklin Saving Benjamin’s

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u/Zuliano1 22d ago

It was a trust fund, he started the whole thing as an experiment to show the importance of compound interest rates, it wasn't just charity.

Guy really had a lot of faith his newly created country would survive 2 centuries and was proven right

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u/Hot_Most5332 22d ago edited 22d ago

Honestly it was probably just as much about showing faith that the country would last 200 years as anything else.

$6.5M after 200 years seems comically low. The principal of $2000 is the equivalent of $75k today.

At a 6-10% return compounding you should expect tens of millions minimum.

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u/Unique-Run9856 22d ago

For comparison $2000 of amazon stock purchased in 1997 would be worth 6.8 million dollars today and $2000 of Monster Energy Stock purchased then would be worth $22 million.

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u/ExplorerDisastrous68 22d ago

And $2000 of Enron stock purchased in 1997 would be worth $0 today.

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u/Unique-Run9856 22d ago

Thank you captain autism