Howard Hughes Would Envy You
Howard Hughes was one of the richest people in the world during his lifetime. He was also a bit of an eccentric fellow (putting it mildly). But I recently learned an interesting tidbit about his life that puts into perspective just how much wealthier we are today in ways that simply can’t be captured by mere reference to GDP accounting.
Hughes was an insomniac and a movie buff. Unfortunately for him, late night programming was very limited. He wanted to have more options available for what to watch during his sleepless nights. And, with his not inconsiderable resources, he managed to find a solution. He ended up buying a TV station, KLAS, in 1967 for the price of $3.6 million dollars, which would come out to just under $34 million dollars today adjusting for inflation. Now in control of his own private TV station, he could ensure movies would be broadcast at all hours. And apparently, it wasn’t uncommon for him to decide he didn’t like what was being shown and simply call the station to tell them to play something else instead. As a result, anyone else who was watching the station would suddenly find themselves confused as the movie they were in the middle of watching was suddenly switched to something else.
Hughes was a wealthy man. But at the same time, he had to spend what in todays money would be tens of millions of dollars in order to get a service that was vastly inferior to what anyone with a Netflix subscription has available to them today. Hughes could have burned through his entire fortune without ever coming close to gaining the dizzying variety of entertainment that you or I can have today for a trivial amount of money.
If you look at Hughes’ net worth during his life (even without adjusting for inflation!), by all standard measures he was a vastly wealthier person than I am. But I would never be even slightly tempted to exchange my current standard of living for the standard of living Hughes had during his life. And 1967 isn’t exactly ancient history. One doesn’t have to look that far back to see how the luxuries of wealthiest people alive a generation or two ago couldn’t even begin to approximate what today is so abundant as to be considered trivial.
If I suggested to someone right now that their grandchildren will have things that are beyond the reach of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos with all their riches today, they may think that’s a fantastical claim. But it’s a claim that we can accurately make now about ourselves and Howard Hughes, or John Rockefeller, or any other wealthy person from even a generation ago. So the next time you settle down on your couch and log into your Netflix account, take a moment to be grateful that you don’t have to live like Howard Hughes. When you turn your air conditioning on to take the edge off a hot summer day, be grateful that you don’t have to live like John Rockefeller. When you put some antibiotic ointment over a little cut, thank your lucky stars that your medical care is so much better than what was available to the son of President Calvin Coolidge, who died when a blister on his toe got infected. And be grateful in the knowledge that your grandchildren will be thankful that they don’t have to live like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos live today.
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