John D. Rockefeller and his Crippling Habit of Giving Away Dimes

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John D. Rockefeller is one of the richest men to have ever lived, he had more money than you could shake a stick at, impressive considering Rockefeller could have hired at least 3o people to do that. Though many stories tell of his wealth and philanthropy, few tell of his habit of giving every person he ever met a dime.

Just to clarify, Rockefeller gave away dimes in 1920’s money and he gave one to every person he ever met. That’d be like Bill Gates carrying around a huge bag of 5 dollar bills to throw at everyone who tried to shake his hand.

It’s estimated that on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars he gave away through other means, Rockefeller also gave away an additional $35,000 in nothing but dimes. Again, if you don’t think this is impressive, we did the math, if this figure is accurate it means that Rockefeller gave dimes to over 300 thousand different people during his lifetime. At that rate if you talked to and gave a dime to 20 different people every single day, it’d take you 50 fucking years to get rid of of them all. Holy crap, how did Rockefeller ever get anything else done, how was his life not nothing but throwing dimes at passersby after the first year?

As a testament to both his wealth and his good nature, no one was exempt from this rule. Though Rockefeller mostly enjoyed sharing the dimes with children, most of whom had never seen a brand new coin and would react in awe at being given one by the stone pimp that was J.D Rockefeller. He also gave them to adults, colleagues and the occasional well dressed ape.

Perhaps the most hilarious example of Rockefeller’s humor and his all consuming dime habit working in tandem is when he met tire magnate and wicked rich gentlemen, Samuel Firestone, the owner of Firestone tires. Despite that fact Firestone was a literal millionaire, Rockefeller, true to the blood oath he’d signed with the money Gods to share his immense wealth, handed Firestone a shiny dime.

Now just for a second picture the richest man that has ever lived giving a millionaire a shiny coin and realise that it’s not something we’re making up to annoy you, it actually happened. Not only did it happen, but you can be that almost immediately afterwards Rockefeller threw a handful of dimes into the eyes of anyone in his vicinity.

To read more about celebrities who gave away a fuck-ton of money, read about how Nic Cage is officially one of the most generous men in all of Hollywood.