The Louisiana and Shanghai Purchases 2

Adjusted for inflation since 1803 the $15m paid for the land is equivalent to $340 million give or take a few cents. However off comparable land value it is today valued at $1.25 trillion. Thomas Jefferson as I said did a great deal with Napoleon Bonaparte who in fairness was only 34 years of age at the time and was busy readying to be Emperor in 1804. Jefferson was at the time the 3rd President of the United States and at 60 years of age had a tad more Real Estate experience than Napoleon.

Meantime across in China and in 1996 I was offered 2500 square miles of land near Wuhan for zero but on the basis I created the Nations Industrial Building materials centre there out of the raw land without any infrastructure that it was. Unfortunately I was unable to consummate the deal for Britain and the Japanese eventually moved in to do it. Mind you perhaps better on hindsight I kept well away from near Wuhan.

Warren Buffet at the Annual General Meeting pointed not just to comparable value but highlighted the fact that at least $40 billion had been realised out of the 828,000 square miles in energy resources over the years and the majority raw land had produced much more than $1.25 trillion raw land value as stated above.

Finally back to near Wuhan the 2500 square miles is 1.6 million acres and even if I took 10% of the price per acre that Henry Keswick paid for his 23 acres in Shanghai two months ago ,the land value would be $300 million plus and bearing in mind the land was being given to me for free at long last and over 200 years on someone dumber than Napoleon Bonaparte in Real Estate has been found. That’s right ME.