Sure, even if you accept that $Ts have gone missing (not sure if I believe that they're missing, just poorly allocated to overpricing defense contractors), it would have to go to many, many people. I think it would be impossible to hide in America. It is a good point about Putin though. He's probably the only person I can think of in the world who could pull it off. Still, if the main source of wealth is oil, then it would be hard to hide from the world market, and essentially useless without including the world oil market. Same with any other natural resource - how would you hide 600M barrels of oil ($60B worth at current market price)? Or a mine with that many diamonds? Or a company with that much revenue?
It still doesn't answer the other question, why hide all that money? If you've got the billions, why not show them off? Or if you can't enjoy them, why bother embezzling them?
Maybe you're right that it would be impossible to hide this in America.
I don't like to get all conspiratorial, but have you read 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man'? If half of what Perkins writes is true, then maybe it wouldn't be so hard. He says that there is a parallel economic system in operation that most of us don't know about. If you were part of that world, you probably could flaunt your wealth... you just have to be sure it's hidden from the population at large.
Interesting looking book. Still, it sounds like big banks transferring big tax money to big companies. 3 big means that it can make a lot of people rich and drive a lot of business, but not necessarily create mega-billionaires.
I mean come on, for $65 billion, you could buy Oracle, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, or Apple (in 2006).
Or try spending it on stuff - the most expensive house is ~$120 million (Mittal's house next to Buckingham Palace in London). The biggest yacht is ~$100 million. The entire "World" development in Dubai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(archipelago) ) cost $14B, and it's selling to some of the richest people in the world. You could buy every superlative in the world and still have most of your money leftover. When you get to that much money, the only thing you can't buy is bragging rights over the people above you on the Forbes list.
It still doesn't answer the other question, why hide all that money? If you've got the billions, why not show them off? Or if you can't enjoy them, why bother embezzling them?