native americans sold manhattan to dutch for $24 in 1620s. At 8% growth rate, that $24 would become $562 trillion today, roughly 18x USA GDP, able to buy today’s whole new york real estate for hundreds of times

One of my favorite compound-interest thought experiments: The famous story says Manhattan was “sold” to the Dutch for about $24. Imagine that $24 had instead been invested in 1626 and earned an average 8% annual return, compounded for 400 years. By 2026, it would have grown to roughly $562 TRILLION. For perspective: • That’s about 18× an entire year of U.S. GDP • Roughly 340× the value of ALL NYC…