Bezos' worth is paper, the Vatican has billions in cash, that's outside of all its other holdings in stocks, real estate and so on.
They pull in 100's of millions per week, now obviously lots of that is spent again but plenty of it flows upwards.
I don't think there is any proper accounting of the true worth of the Vatican other than what slips out and the official reporting by the Vatican bank.
Personally I'd be happy if the whole thing went bust but they keep finding new people to fleece so it will be a while. Get them while they're young... It's remarkably effective, once brainwashed as a child it takes a very strong person to break out of that stuff.
It's interesting how accidents of birth tend to tie people to some religion (or none) and then that becomes a defining part of their identity to the point where they can no longer separate from it. And so if you're born in Pakistan chances are large that you will feel like the Muslim religion is the one and true and when you're born in Ireland it will likely be Catholicism or Protestantism (but the dividing line between those two is - unless you're part of either - for non-religious people roughly the same as between Orthodox verions of that same religion, in other words, all followers of Jesus in some variation).
Born to Jewish parents Judaism is very likely to be your religion and so on. That alone should make you wonder how much of this is free choice and how much of it is indoctrination. Maybe we'll kick the religion virus one day but I'm not too hopeful it will happen.
Then a whole bunch of old guys in robes and people speaking with great authority on subjects they could not possibly know anything about will have to find some new way of conning people.
I don't know what most of this is meant to persuade me of, but I will say that when people estimate the value of the Vatican, they're not just basing that on the cash in the Vatican Bank.
They pull in 100's of millions per week, now obviously lots of that is spent again but plenty of it flows upwards.
I don't think there is any proper accounting of the true worth of the Vatican other than what slips out and the official reporting by the Vatican bank.
Personally I'd be happy if the whole thing went bust but they keep finding new people to fleece so it will be a while. Get them while they're young... It's remarkably effective, once brainwashed as a child it takes a very strong person to break out of that stuff.
It's interesting how accidents of birth tend to tie people to some religion (or none) and then that becomes a defining part of their identity to the point where they can no longer separate from it. And so if you're born in Pakistan chances are large that you will feel like the Muslim religion is the one and true and when you're born in Ireland it will likely be Catholicism or Protestantism (but the dividing line between those two is - unless you're part of either - for non-religious people roughly the same as between Orthodox verions of that same religion, in other words, all followers of Jesus in some variation).
Born to Jewish parents Judaism is very likely to be your religion and so on. That alone should make you wonder how much of this is free choice and how much of it is indoctrination. Maybe we'll kick the religion virus one day but I'm not too hopeful it will happen.
Then a whole bunch of old guys in robes and people speaking with great authority on subjects they could not possibly know anything about will have to find some new way of conning people.