Janet CollinsPoor Little Rich Boys
March 13th 2009 10:19
The global recession has seen so many people lose their jobs all over the world so it may have come as some consolation that most of the richest people in the world have felt the squeeze too.
The Forbes Rich List was released this week and the 793 people who made it to the list was far shorter than the 1,125 billionaires who were on last year’s list.
Even the ones at the top of the list saw their fortunes fall pretty drastically. Take the world’s richest man this year for example. According to the Forbes list it is Bill Gates, taking over the number one spot from Warren Buffet.
Gates held this spot previously but, although his reported fortunes declined by $18 billion this year, he still managed to reclaim the postion of the world’s richest man.
Warren Buffet, last year’s title holder, saw his fortunes decline by $25 billion and this year has to be content with being the second richest man in the world.
There were 373 who fell off the list this year, although 18 of these had died over the previous year. What the list also highlighted was the change in where the richest people live.
There were 29 Indians who lost their billionaire status and 55 Russians. This has handed back the billionaire capital of the world to New York. Last year Moscow had overtaken New York for that title with 74 tycoons to New York’s 71 but this years list shows Moscow’s tycoons to number 27 compared to New York’s 55.
We should all now be content in the knowledge that the world’s richest are feeling the pinch too.
You can vew the full list here:
Really Long Link
Sourced:
www.forbes.com
| 132 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
Comment by Spike 2
Wordophilia
Qwerk
Peanut Butter
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
The list does however highlight (as you say) how so much wealth is shared between so few. It also says something about whether these lists should actually be done while so many people are doing it so tough.
Thanks Spike.
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
It does seem rather crass that they are still publishing lists such as these, doesn't it?
Comment by Spike 2
Wordophilia
Qwerk
Peanut Butter
Given the choice, I'd rather see the money in the hands of the poor, but at least with him (and people like John Chambers at Cisco, who's another one with tons of cash but a good heart), the money isn't in the hands of psychos, killers and mad dictators (though that cocaine dealer on the list is depressing).
Comment by sam sall
Health and Fitness
Speech Starter
Health Matters
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
Yes, that Mexican was an interesting one but if he is on the run as they say his wealth may sustain him (probably hidden everywhere) but is not much good otherwise.
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
Yes, they do but there are a hell of a lot of people on that list wo don't really deserve to be and don't do good things with their billions.
Comment by Morgan Bell
Science News
Deep Pencil
Business News
Movie Train
Artist Quirk
too much money, too little sense
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
moneywhither
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
Newly Old
It's the reward for being clever enough to create something profitable. Some may bend the rules doing this; most do not.
If you don't think of individual wealth in terms of huge numbers, but think of it in terms of the number of jobs such people have created, then it becomes more objective, and more palatable.
Sure, some of them are shonky, and some are third-generation inherited-wealth nincompoops. But most are not.
Wealthy individuals are necessary for a healthy, free economy, and they are largely responsible for the shape and the stability of the societies in which we live.
I will now put my bicycle helmet on in preparation for Ruby's reply
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
I hadn't heard this but that really doesn't surprise me. He is probably trying to compete with his former rival and One Tel colleague, James Packer!
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
Maybe I'm just suffereing from a severe case of Tall Poppy Syndrome.
Even if you look at it all as objectively as you can, the disparity between the richest and the poorest is something that they - and governments everywhere - have to also take responsibility for.
Yes, we should also accept that the jobs these people create are a great benefit to the societies in which they live - that is if these jobs come with real liveable wages and are then not stripped away and shipped to somewhere that will cost them even less.
I'll now get off my high horse! Oh....I can see you are now thinking like a businessman and perhaps you just might make the Forbes list next year.
Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
moneywhither
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
Newly Old
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
Don't be cruel. Norm's just an old-fashioned guy with old-fashioned values. He just doesn't see the point in publicising how rich he is. I admire that about him.
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
The first testing grounds for the unfettered free enterprise system were actually right wing dictatorships- Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Indonesia. Hardly hotbeds of democracy. They were also backed, aided and abetted by the CIA and Milton Friedman himself.
I believe in democracy.I also believe there should be some level of regulation, otherwise power and money falls into the hands of a select few, which is what we have seen happening in recent decades. I think that claiming that free enterprise and ciivil liberty are synonymous is naive at best and callous at worst. Tell that to the thousands of the disappeared in Chile. To it the Mothers of the Plazo Del Mayo in Argentina. Tell it to the factory workers of the Ford plant in Brazil which had its very own secret torture chamber on its premises.
A completely unregulated free market system is the antithesis of freedom. It can only be intalled through the use of force and the deprivation of liberty. How many of those on the rich list made their fortunes by outsourcing their factories to China? How many people know that China opened up its markets to the west after following the advice of Milton Friedman? How many people know that the workers and students of Tianenman Square were not protesting against Communism itself but against the Friedman- style economic reforms the govt was planning? Reforms that the govt brought in whilst the country and the world were still reeling from the massacre?
Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
Comment by Mistersmith
MRS SMITH
READ THIS
SISTERS IN CRIME
The free enterprise system needs to be regulated (I would say, strictly) It is always being touted as fair and impartial and the best and everyone's got the chance to do well if they really want to but it doesn't really take into account innate human greed and the responsibility towards the 'losers' who don't do well in this system.
Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
The art is, never agree with Ruby
Comment by Mistersmith
MRS SMITH
READ THIS
SISTERS IN CRIME
Comment by Chris Champion
LettersToNorm
moneywhither
Vyoos
Zoomies
Bloggercises
The Blog of Lists
Newly Old
Of course economic systems need regulation. I never said otherwise. And right-wing dictatorships and communism have nothing to do with the point I was trying to make. Claiming they do is using the extreme to argue against the mundane.
It's twisting words.
If you, Ruby, were to start a business, it would be crucial to maximise your return on investment. Not to do so is to run the risk of failing, and to short-change any investors you may have in the business.
If you do it well, you will create profit, jobs and wealth. They aren't options - they are a product of sustainable business practice. The vast majority of people who do it well do it ethically. Oh, and the ones who do it well tend to understand that the way to motivate employees is to treat them well.
What serious alternative is there to a free market (which, for those who like to twist accepted expressions into something they don't mean, I redefine as a free regulated market) economy? How do you legislate against wealth or wealth creation?
The world is unfair. So try taking away everyone's money, splitting it evenly and returning it in equal amounts to the global population. Now the world is fair, I suppose. For about a day. Then you have chaos. Then, slowly, the system will reassert itself and the world will revert to unfair, natural selection ways.
The world is unequal partly because the people in it are unequal (in terms of education, opportunity etc) and partly because of rapacious and unethical governments in places like Zimbabwe and all the other desperately poor countries.
Don't blame businessmen and women as a whole. They make easy targets for cheap shot generalisations, but to be credible you need to deal in specifics, and you need to stick to the issue.
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
No. I'm a pacifist.
Comment by Mistersmith
MRS SMITH
READ THIS
SISTERS IN CRIME
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
Comment by JoshZ
to a degree I agree with Ruby in saying that a totally free system is an open door to people getting abused. The fact that many companies do what they have to do ethicallyis of course a bonus, but governments need to act in the interests of the entirety of their people, not just a few.
The fact that sometimes the rich get tax cuts that lower income earners don't is sometimes quite frustrating (I say this largely because I'm not getting those tax cuts, if I was my opinion would probably change). The problem with "trickle down" economies is that they don't always trickle down enough.
JZ
Comment by The wonderful Peter Yang
The wonderful Peter Yang's Variety blog
Power Ranger Online
Comedy TV Online
Comment by Time to Get Up Club
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
This Forbes listin each year, just makes me feel sick to me stomach at the people (and environments) who have paid the price for the list to exist and for us all to be able to comment on it in the first place.
To me, such imbalance is mindboggling.
Lilla ..
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
If at all! You are certainly right there.
Thanks for dropping by.
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
Are you sitting on the fence? I wasn't sure.
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
Yes, I don't think many of them will be doing without.
Thanks for the comment.
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
There was a time - and it's really not all that long ago- that private money was a private affair. I think if they choose to flaunt it, they also have to accept the criticism that goes with it.
Take care.
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by remember-what-life-tells-you
Yes, I don't think many of them will be doing without.
Thanks for the comment.