How Would You Like an Hawaiian Island for $2,000?

"Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison has reached a deal to buy 98 percent of the island of Lanai ..."

This sort of thing puts the wealth of the world's richest into perspective. In order to buy the island, Ellison will pay an estimated $500 to $700 million, which would be nearly 2% of his total wealth of $36 billion. 

By contrast, the average value of wealth held by Americans is about $450k and half of Americans have a net worth of less than $100k. Depending on which of these measures you use for us normal people, the strain on Ellison's budget to buy the island of Lanai is equivalent to us paying $2,000 to $8,000 for property. For that amount, though, we would probably get an island considerably smaller than 141 square miles.