I don’t see Putin on Forbes list of the world’s richest men, which he would be if hr were really worth $70 Billion, coming in at #2 or #3. Forbes regularly includes dictators who have stolen state money in their richest lists. You are going to have to stop sniffing glue.
According to Forbes:
“We do not include royal family members or dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power, nor do we include royalty who, often with large families, control the riches in trust for their nation.”
Actually it's pretty clear why Putin isn't on the list. Forbes excludes members of royal families and “dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power.”
The rest of your post is simply wrong.
Forbes is not accurate.
The world’s most wealthy do not disclose their wealth to anyone.
There are Chinese families in special mountain ranges and there are temples in India with gatekeepers, both having assets in the trillions. However, monetizing the assets is most difficult.
Russia also has the world’s largest inventory of diamonds, and they are very good ones. They could easily put De Beers out of business., and themselves in the process. The problem is that dumping diamonds on the market would tank the market. Because De Beers and Russia control the market and the market is built on psychology, Russia has agreed to sell their diamonds to De Beers and no one else except for small black market activity which gets away from them.
Monetizing wealth is subject to market psychology and supply magnitude. Forbes not only is inaccurate with respect who to holds or controls the most liquidity, they are also in the dark about who holds or controls the most valuable assets.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed for example, owns and controls many times more than a few trillion in oil and gold. Saudi Arabs are obsessed with gold and they do not disclose how much they hold or where it’s held. Forbes may attach a wealth number to this Prince but they don’t know what is real.
Forbes publishes ‘the world’s richest persons’ because it sells. People are curious. So people learn about Gates, Slim, Buffett, Cuban, Zuckerberg and a few foreigners. People want to look at their pictures and read about where they are, how they live, etc. because it feeds people’s curiosity about how the wealthy live. It matters not if the list is accurate. To keep it interesting they will add a new billioinaire here and there.
Prince Charles’s crown office is known to have a special license through an esoteric system in Luxembourg that opens more than 1800 financial credit accounts worldwide and the credit is based on assets, both liquid and illiquid. The value of all those accounts is said to be in the trillions.
Like Prince Charles, the Bush family is said to have the special Luxembourg credit accounts in the trillions with the trading arm centered in the Evergreen Trading firm.
I know all this from contacts in Switzerland and a few other places, contacts that own their own 757s, have homes all around the world, and more businesses than they can keep up with. No one will ever know how wealthy they are except their accountants and they have many of those and they don’t communicate to each other. So no one person or firm knows the full magnitude of the wealth.