just rummaging around I found that RFK , JR said there wasn’t much money left..and that Jackie O paid for fixing Ethyls roof when it was leaking
They need to start running the rum again!
Who’s got the boat??
Actually, they have quite a bit of money in the various family trusts... but Joe Sr. set up those trusts obviously knowing the proclivities of his spawn. It is said that the family members get a limited distribution every year, but they can’t get at the main body of wealth in the trust(s). The trusts are also set up to hide the assets from view.
While Joe Sr. certainly did dabble in the liquor trade, he made his first big stake as a market operator. Joe P. Kennedy was a short play manipulator, much like JL Livermore - notorious “plungers.”
When FDR set up the SEC, he decided that he’d put Joe Sr. in charge of the new SEC, because how better to catch stock manipulators than to hire one of your own?
Joe Sr then goes on to being an embarrassing ambassador to England in early WWII. Then Joe putters around for a bit, then decided to get into real estate speculation and investment. This is where the Kennedy family fortune kicked into high gear.
Since the trusts were written back when we had some gold backing the dollar, Joe Sr. probably didn’t expect inflation to eat away at the dollar’s value as it has. If you look at inflation vs. the dollar, it really took off after ‘73. Joe Sr. died in ‘69. I’m assuming that the trust distributions aren’t indexed for inflation... and this leads to their issues with cash flow.