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The Absurd True Scale of Pablo Escobar’s Wealth Visualized

If somebody were to
ask you who the richest criminal of all time
was you would probably say that it was Pablo Escobar. And you would definitely
be right in saying that. But you may not know exactly
just how absurdly rich the man actually was. At the height of Escobar's
power and adjusted for inflation in 2012 dollars, he had
an estimated net worth of $30 billion US dollars. Now, $30 billion is a
very difficult number to get one's head
around, so let's look at this from a different angle. In 1989, Pablo Escobar
was estimated by Forbes to be the seventh richest
person in the world.

If he were alive
today and making the same amount
of money, he would be placed 18th on that list. The engine that provided
him with his immense wealth has his Medellin cartel, a
ruthless drug organization so large that it could be
placed on the Fortune 500. For a time, the cartel
basically owned an entire island in the Bahamas that they
used as a refueling point for their planes smuggling
cocaine from Colombia. The island had a 1
kilometer long airstrip where they would land
their large planes, transfer the cocaine
on to smaller planes, and from there land
on remote dirt roads in the south of Florida,
where the cocaine would then hit the streets of
the United States. The cartel was
making five to seven of these flights every
day in their heyday and even had a fleet
of two submarines.

Altogether about
15 tons of cocaine was being smuggled by the cartel
into the United States per day. This amounted to them
controlling 84 to 90% of the cocaine supply in the
United States and about 80% of the total global
cocaine supply. One single kilo of cocaine cost
the cartel an average of $1,000 to refine and another $4,000 to
smuggle into the United States. Pilots who were
employed by the cartel can make up to $500,000 per
flight into the United States. Once on the streets
of the United States, that kilo that cost
$5,000 to arrive there could sell for anywhere
between $50,000 to $70,000.

What this meant was that
Escobar's cartel was making $60 million in revenue per day. That equals $420
million every week and that meant an operating
yearly income of $22 billion. They were making so
much money that they had to spend around $1,000
each week just on rubber bands to keep their mountains of
cash all neat and organized. They ran out of places
to store their money and had to resort to
stashing it in old worn down warehouses and even
buried it in remote fields. Escobar decided to write off
10% of their monthly revenues simply because that's about how
much was being eaten by rats or damaged by water. That's about $2.2
billion every year that was simply being destroyed,
and it didn't affect Escobar much at all. This is a man who once burned
$2 million in cold cash just to keep his daughter warm
one time when she was cold.

Now, let's get some
perspective on these numbers. As stated earlier, these numbers
are so astronomically high that they're very
difficult to visualize. Let's think about how
the average yearly income for somebody in Colombia
today is $5,194. That means that today it
would take 4,235,657 average Colombians to combine their
yearly incomes just to match Pablo Escobar's. Moving over to the United
States for a comparison, the average yearly household
income here is $51,939. That means that the average
household in the United States would have to work for 1,155
years saving all of the money that they made in
the process just to equal the same
amount of money that Pablo Escobar's Medellin
cartel was making in just one single day. Staggeringly, to match
the amount of money the cartel was
making in one year it would take 423,574
average US households to pool all of their
yearly earnings together. That's roughly the
same population as the city of Miami.

And what about
Escobar's reported net worth of $30 billion? That value is so
high, it's roughly equivalent to the
entire 2016 GDP of Paraguay, a country with a
population of 6,783,000 people. If the Medellin
cartel at its peak was actually listed as an
American company on the Fortune 500 today, it would be placed
at the 129th largest company by yearly revenue, just making
more money than the Union Pacific Railroad Company,
while also making more money than Starbucks, Staples, Kohl's,
Southwest Airlines, and even Facebook. But all of this wealth
couldn't possibly last forever. Escobar's cartel was responsible
for an estimated 3,500 murders, 500 of whom
were police officers in the city of Medellin.

Escobar himself was gunned
down in a hail of bullets on the 2nd of December in
1993, and his cartel and wealth largely died with him. So thank you for
watching this video. While Pablo Escobar's fortune
made him an influential man in life, his legacy has
left a lasting influence on our pop culture and TV shows. Click here to go
to our good friends over at the Court Of Source
for the next part explaining how huge of an impact on our
popular culture men like Pablo Escobar have had. The Court Of Source
has excellent content. And if you haven't
subscribed to them yet, then you should probably
think about changing that. Until next time, this
was Real Life Lore..

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Should You Transfer Your Final Salary Pension?

[Music] welcome to the Morningstar series ask the expert I'' m Holly black with me in the workshop is Steve Webb he'' s director of plan at Royal London hey there Mohammad so we'' re talking pensions today as well as you'' re telling us about the distinction in between a defined advantage and a specified contribution pension plan so defined benefits sometimes called last wages commonly you hear it called is the older design of pension plans so you utilized to work for a huge firm and they'' d pay your pension plan that resembled a tough assurance you'' ve earned this quantity of cash you'' ve served this variety of years you'' ll get this portion of your last income when you retire amazing excellent that'' s right so'there ' s the example that'you desire that ' s often tended to go nowadays companies have shut them since they'' ve end up being a lot a lot more pricey than they anticipated and also nowadays you'' re most likely to have a pot of cash pension called a defined payment since the only point that'' s defined is what ' s going in that'' s what we understand what we put on ' t'understand is exactly how well it will certainly do as well as it ' s invested we put on ' t recognize what kind of pension plan it'will get you when you retire it ' s flexible it has its benefits yet it ' s not the like the old-style and also some new rules that came in a couple of years ago mean that if you do have one of those older design pensioners you put on'' t need to persevere you can relocate it right into type of a sip or an internet select how you spend it on your own why may someone do that what can happen is if you'' ve obtained an old-style final wage pension of let'' s say 10 thousand extra pounds a year rather than taking that 10 thousand a year when you retire till you die the pension plan system could claim we will certainly offer you instead three hundred thousand extra pounds that may be an example as well as you can take that cash and placed it into a pot of money pension a different kind of plan as well as the large plus of that comfortable adaptability so for example from the age of 55 you can begin attracting on that currently there'' s tax obligation to be paid and also obviously it could not last you to the or 85 or 90 so you know however it is a lot more adaptable people like that due to the fact that if they were to pass away possibly if they don'' t have a spouse however perhaps they have kids or something like that after that the pot is left for the youngsters whereas a firm pension plan very little might most likely to the kids so it generally allows people much more selection a lot more adaptability perhaps retire a bit previously as well as invest a few of the pot to maintain them going till their state pension begins that'' s why a great deal of people see this big quantity of money see the versatility as well as locate it rather attractive yet the regulatory authority has claimed they'' re really worried that a lot of people are doing that and it may not be the appropriate decision due to the fact that there are a whole lot of factors to stick with that older design pension plan scheme out there there are as well as the regulator'' s claim that the when you take monetary guidance the expert needs to begin from the assumption you must remain put from the assumption that you shouldn'' t step'unless there ' s a great factor to relocate as well as a few of the tourist attractions of staying or to start with this revenue is rather much ensured it lasts as long as you do it rises in line with inflation for the most part and also if you'' re retired for 20 or thirty years that truly matters and also you don'' t need to fret about the supply market rising or down that'' s the pension plan plans problem not yours so that component of certainty predictability assured income since you put on'' t understand how much time you'' re going to live you put on'' t understand how the marketplaces are mosting likely to do all that danger is cared for for you which'' s an extremely appealing and beneficial thing this is probably one of the most important choices people will certainly make in their life if they do have this selection so what is the best thing to do well even if your pension deserves only as they just but thirty thousand extra pounds which'' s a pot of thirty thousand pounds not a yearly pension plan so the majority of these old last salary schemes will be above that degree by law you have to take monetary recommendations however a couple of things to start with pay attention to it because it'' s tempting to assume I see this quantity of cash may be larger than worth of my house I desire my hands on it I don'' t care what you the consultants are say I just want my cash money that'' s you'recognize if you ' re quickly take a big deep breath and also the various other point additionally is to ask some quite searching concerns about where the cash'' s going to go to because several advisors are unbiased they'' ve obtained your ideal interests in mind yet some of them have actually obtained incentives that in fact they intend to handle your money they want one more piece each year you recognize as well as you just require to ask a whole lot of questions concerning the fees your face if you do a transfer so be sure there'' s a great reason to move and begin with the assumption that you put on'' t and after that pay attention carefully if the guidance as well as be rather you understand ask some challenging inquiries thanks so a lot for your time as well as thanks for joining us

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