How reliable is Forbes magazine?

Question

They listed The King of Thailand as the worlde wealthiest royal, with some obscene amount of money, Apparently listing a lot of crown land and other holdings which he has no control over

Answer 1

About as reliable as the Bangkok Post or the Washington Post.

Answer 2

I read it, and I think there're pretty fair in saying the reason why Thai King jump places to the top is because his holding of assets become more transparent and that his assets then increase 7 fold over the past year to be at 35 billion USD.

Like everything else, this is only the estimation of the wealth he holds. The King assets is essentially divided into his personal assets and the crown properties, which are two different set of wealth.

The crown properties own large amount of land in the country. The word King in Thai isn't equivalent to Raja derived from Sanskrit, but actually referred to as Pra Chao Pane Din (literally means the master of the land). The tradition of Kingship in Thailand dated back much further than the feudal time when land is given by the King to War Lords as rewards for his deeds and also as the measurement of his title. The concept of slavery and workers comes with the land, so a warlord with a large piece of land, more number of slaves and workers is higher in position than the lesser.

In short, the King however owns it all. But, as time goes by, then there are more and more land owned under the concept of private ownership. Much of the land however as a legacy of the crown still passed on to the King in the Crown Property and as such most part of Rattanakosin Island (or inner Bangkok) belongs to the crown. It worth a lot (can't estimate), but surely it can't be sold (well if you force it, it can). Imagine most of the national preserved buildings, old government offices, old parliament, the grand palace, old commercial area, old citizen residences and etc located on Rattanakosin Island. The crown used to charge rental something like 5 dollars a year. One of my family houses used to be located on the crown property and we paid something like 3-5 dollars a year until it was expropriated to make way for the express way.

Although you can't own the land that belongs to the crown property, you can still sell the rights to rent which is quite a lot too. But, recently, the crown property started to make more commercial senses out of the land they own, still it's very little comparing to the businesses.

Apart from that the crown property own lands in a lot of places in Thailand outside of Bangkok.

Ok. The above I mentioned is land only. The crown and the King own a lot more in term of investment throughout the past 200 years. So, he owns a bit.

But, I would say, if the crash in 1997 didn't come, Sultan Bolkia of Brunei is worth a lot more. Then, he was estimated to worth 38 billion dollars and that pretty much in liquid. The guy bought a role of building on Park Lane in London making it into his house when he visits the place, and many more.

So, I would say, the wealth of Thai King is only the immeasurable wealth that he will not be selling to buy Porsche or diamonds to play with; although he does on the other side has holdings from both the crown property and his personal wealth invested in financial companies, Bank, construction, and etc.

P.S. when alone in the palace, he drives a very old Toyota Soluna (the cheapest Toyota you can buy)!.

Answer 3

The King of Thailand owns the hearts of all the Thai people - - I don't think you can measure that in dollar value - by my scorecard he is the richest man in the world...