The Annual Forbes List of the World's Richest is out and there have been some big changes. First off, for the first time in 13 years, Bill Gates is not Number 1! He is replaced by a fellow Omaha native, Warren Buffett (Go Huskers! :) )
Mr. Buffett watched his fortune jump $10 Billion in 2007, to reach $62 Billion. Berkshire Hathaway continues to be the company to beat for long term investment prowess. His friend and List buddy Bill Gates saw his fortune jump $2 Billion to $58B, not good enough to even hold on to #2.
Gates slipped to number three behind Mexican Telecon Kingpin, Carlos Slim Helú, who has seen his fortune double to $60B in just two years. An amazing financial run.
Mr. Helú is part of a growing International trend to the list. Four of the Ten Top Billionaires are from India. In comparison, two years ago, 10 of the Top 20 were from the US, now only four are. The US still leads in total number of billionaires with 42% coming from our shores.
However, Russia becomes the number two country overtaking Germany as the new minted Russian capitalists rush the poll. Karl Marx RPM meter now reads 7200RPM :).
The other interesting stat was how many younger people were on the list. 50 of the 1125 billionaires were under 40! The youngest? Would you be surprise if they were from an Internet company?
It is Mark Zuckerberg from facebook. He just made it based on the current guesstimate valuation of the Social Site, but then again he is already 23 and past his prime ;).
Anyway it is an interesting read. So many different ways that people hit the list. Stocks, Internet, Real Estate, and everything else under the sun.
Me? Not quite yet. Maybe next year. In fact I am going to go see if I can cut my entertainment budget a bit more just to make sure.
6 Comments:
Looks like a couple of these people getting together can buy over a country or two.
Next year's list should be interesting. It could be that quite a fair bit of the wealth is from stocks. 2006 and part of 2007 were really good years.
Let's see how the stock market's shaking and rocking affects the Forbes list next year.
I cannot even fathom having that much money! Billions????? I certainly could figure out how to spend some of it though! :)
I always find it interesting how many different ways people have their money. There's no one secret.
@Father- It seems that way. They froze values as of early February, so this current roller-coaster will shake it up!
@Sharon - Well first pay off all debt. Then fully fund retirement. Then fully fund an investment portfolio. Then have 99.9% left :)
@Fiscal- Other than hard work and own your own business. Not a lot of Billionaires working for other people!
Did you realise that Mr Buffet managed to pump up a 19.23% his net worth in US$ terms in a fallen market? Even after a 13.24% drop in the USD/EUR exchange rate he managed to increase his wealth a 3.44% in euro terms! The man is good!
As he said the other day on CNBC, he didn't make his money out of predicting the market, but out of 'staying out of trouble'! Let's learn a bit, you lot! (me included)
.Calvin
Great Point .Calvin - This is on top of all the current issues. He isn't quite a contrarian, but after sitting on cash, regardless of the ramp up by others, he is now set up to take advantage of prices going too low!
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