Bill Gates No Longer World's Richest Man 413
alphadogg writes "Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires." I'd still let the guy buy me dinner if he's ever in my town. He's probably still good for it even though he's fallen on hard times.
Re:Hard times? (Score:5, Informative)
And now, the $0.5 million question: How much money does Gates give to charity?
According to the Wikipedia page on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [wikipedia.org], the foundation donates $1.5 billion per year. And a BusinessWeek estimate [businessweek.com] lists Gates as having donated $28.1 billion over his whole life.
Don't worry.... (Score:3, Informative)
On a more serious note, we now have more millionaires and billionaires than at any other time in the history of the world! The wealth is trickling down baby!
Mr Monopoly (Score:3, Informative)
TelMex controls 92% of the landline phones in the country and his affiliate cell phone business, Telcel, accounts for 73% of the mobile business. The wealth and power derived from these companies has allowed Slim to expand his business empire across a wide swathe of industries."
Monopolies are obviously highly profitable for a few. Besides the economic cost [maths.tcd.ie] to the those funding el imperio de Carlo Slim Helu, have the Mexicans actually weighed up the social costs of supporting it? [google.com]. ...Or is it that the Mexicans do not have a government that represents their best interests...? [google.com]
Re:Hard times? (Score:3, Informative)
$28.144 billion (Score:4, Informative)
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/philanthropy_individual/ [businessweek.com]
Re:Wonderful news (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't worry.... (Score:5, Informative)
While I'm sure that there is more economic activity than ever before, since a dollar today is worth less than 4 cents in 1913 -- being a millionaire is not exactly the same accomplishment as back then. It's more equivalent to being having $25 million today.
Re:So, the Rich got richer this year... (Score:2, Informative)
But [visualizingeconomics.com] not [visualizingeconomics.com] here [wikipedia.org].
charity (Score:4, Informative)
Gates spent 30-40 billions on charity, if he didn't, still would've been #1.
Re:Hard times? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wonderful news (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports [wikipedia.org]
We are #3 behind China and Germany, who both produce 20% more than we do for exports.
As far as raw manufacturing goes, USA is far ahead in the #1 position.
http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2008/09/23/top-manufacturing-countries-in-2007/ [curiouscatblog.net]
Re:Hard times? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wonderful news (Score:5, Informative)
Look here is the plain truth:
Slim was rich before he bought telmex. Around 100 times poorer than he is now, but Im sure you or I could be 100 times poorer than him and still live happy and full lives for us and our descendants (we would own round 500 million bucks!). Slim bought telmex though from President Carlos Salinas (from his government, it was a state owned telephone company which sucked even more than it does now and BOY, does it SUCK NOW), for if I remember correctly round 2000 million dollars, on credit. Which is in its face ridiculous if its the local telephone monopoly of a country of a 100 million people.... and you can see it in the numbers. Telmex sold that ammount every year or two I think, even in its early stages. Right now, Slims empire is MUCH larger than that since they own the cellphone market in many, many latam countries.
Here in Mexico EVERYONE know that its MOST probable that Salinas, the expresident, had his cut from that deal. But we also know that Slim generally has a simple profit minded stance on just about anything. At least he is not crying because gay marriage was aproved for mexico city like other conservative rich men here, at least he gives to the politicall parties and politicians only with profit in mind and not because of an ideological agenda. Belive me, entrepreneurs in Mexico are every bit as crooked when it comes to giving or taking from the government AND they tend to have a moralist agenda. Slim doesnt do that and, for that, at least I am gratefull at least until we finish fixing this fucking country for good.
Re:Wonderful news (Score:5, Informative)
I know you're a self-righeous capitalist, but please read what you responded too. The problem isn't that he's getting rich, the problem is that he's doing it by extracting monopoly rents. A few people getting rich is a good thing, because it spurs investment. One person getting rich by cornering the market is a bad thing, whether your a Marxist or an Austrian, it doesn't result in re-investment, it results in impoverishment of everyone - except that one guy.
In tax breaks and handouts (Score:1, Informative)
In tax breaks and handouts. Or did you forget the bank bailouts (among others) and the biggest tax cuts in american history which went to the corporations and largest wealth owners?
Re:Wonderful news (Score:4, Informative)
I.e. An apartment building which is priced based on the rent collected may be sold for 50% of it's value even thogh it's still full of paying tenants. If the guy who bought it just put 10% down, he makes a 1000% return on his investment. Let me break it down.
Purchase price $1000
Loan $900
Cash invested $100
Value $2000
Equity $1100
Profit 1000%
All the people with both money and brains have been on a buying frenzy since 2008 because deals like this are available if you have the $100 down-payment. (It's more like $100,000,000 most of the time. I just dropped 0s to simplify)
Re:Wonderful news (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, you did manage to get things so wrong...
This family grew their own vegetables in an allotment. What they didn't eat, they pickled. When the pickled food was eaten, they drank the vinegar. They couldn't afford to waste it.
I very much doubt it was actually vinegar that they drank, since it's not exactly something you can drink in the first place. In any case, pickling (in vinegar) at home is actually extremely rare in Russia - most pickled vegetables are bought in stores. Home-made ones are brined instead, with no vinegar involved - just water, salt, and spices.
The liquid that is produced as a result is essentially salted water flavored with the vegetables put into it, and is called "rassol" in Russian. It's generally considered tasty in its own right, and is also a traditional, ages-old treatment for hangover. So drinking it does not, in any way, indicate that the family is poor.
Pickling/brining itself, too, is not an indicator of that, by the way - it's often done for the fun of it. My family isn't poor at all, and yet my grandmother both grows her own vegetables, and pickles them for the winter.
As a parting gift, the lady of the house made a pair of socks from the hair of the household dog and gave them to my friend. This was an extremely kind gift, as it meant that the lady was left with last year's dog hair socks.
Dog hair socks are ascribed various medicinal qualities in Russian folklore, so they are made and worn for the sake of that, not to replace common everyday socks. Furthermore, because those socks have to be hand-made, they aren't replaced all that often. I've had a pair back home which was several years old.
Note that this all doesn't mean that the family your friend stayed with wasn't poor. They may well be, and there are definitely a lot of poor people in Russia. It's just that nothing that you mentioned so far is an indicator of that.
Oh, and Russia today is still way better than Mexico in terms of quality of life. In fact, depending on one's location, it's better than many Eastern European EU member countries.
Re:Did he earn it? (Score:3, Informative)
America is a fucked up mess. Capitalism is a fallacy.
Yeah because the communism of N. Korean and USSR are beacons of progress.
Maybe your angst is misdirected.
People can use their skills (whatever they may be) to make money and that should be their right. Even if it means they make more money than you can with your skills. Tough cookies. Life is not fair.
The *real* problem here is with Carlos and how he made his money. His business has a monopoly on the Mexican (and many other latin american countries) Telecom industry. That is bad because it hinders others from making money in the same industry. Gates and his dirty company have a near monopoly in their market segment, but that's not quite the same, and they've already had to answer monopoly inquires to the US govt.
Capitalism in not a fallacy. Mexican trust regulation is just broken/non-existent/corrupt.
Re:Wonderful news (Score:3, Informative)
This assumes he can sell it for that much right away. If he holds the property until it goes back up to $2000, then profits is a misleading metric. IRR would be better, but that decreases as the length of the investment increases, like if he needs to wait to sell the place, so things don't look as good as you might think.
Of course while he's waiting he gets to collect rent, so that will help a bit. But he also has to pay to maintain the building, pay interest on the loan (which will carry a high rate because banks aren't giving loans easily right now, especially with only 10% down). Don't forget insurance. And, of course, if any of your tenants can't pay rent, or they move, then you'll lose at least 1 month rent from them and have to go through the process of getting a new tenant, which may prove difficult if you want to get as much as the last person paid, a monthly rate that was set pre-recession. Oh, and don't forget taxes, and not just the taxes on your rental income, but also property taxes which are based on property value and may have an assessed value a great deal higher than you purchased the property for. Point: there's a reason these buildings are so cheap.
Re:Did he earn it? (Score:3, Informative)
No man does 53 billion dollar of work. He games the system so the incremental profits of the workers at the bottom of the pyramid trickle up into his pockets.
You do realize that the the labor theory of value is very widely discredited. Investing is not some giant conspiracy against workers. Investment enables the economy to allocate resources in ways that allow for workers to ... well work. A farmer does much better if a speculator can buy their crops at a fixed rate than selling them on the open market. He no longer must bare the entire risk of markets when he farms. Onions cannot be speculated on, and as a result onion farmers are frequently put out of business by wild fluxuations in the market. A person who wants to expand their business may sell bonds or issue stock. These sources of money may not have actual work behind them, but they let the business expand so that actual work can be done.
Oh, and fear of socialism is the primary undercurrent to keep healthcare in America as a luxury only the wealthy can afford.
By law nobody is ever turned down for healthcare in any sort of emergency. 85% of Americans have health insurance but all have access to health care. The fact that the overwhelming majority have insurance shows clearly that it is not exclusive to the rich. A large majority of Americans say they are happy with the quality of care they receive. Of the 15% who are uninsured, about half could afford it but choose to risk it (which is what all forms of insurance are, paying to control a financial risk), and of the remaining uninsured, most are already eligible for programs such as Medicaid and cannot be turned down by hospitals even if they don't pay. America's healthcare system also hardly demonstrates the evils of capitalism, as it isn't a market based system at all. It is the single most regulated industry in the country and the law structures it so that most people are covered through third parties (namely their employer) and are basically required to receive coverage for things they don't need (regulations vary wildly from state to state with no shopping across state lines), and there is the constant overhead created by paperwork and litigation.
America is a fucked up mess. Capitalism is a fallacy.
America is still the largest economy of any country in the world and we are astoundingly successful. For most of human history, the norm has been tyranny, war, brutality, disease, and poverty, but America has been a pleasant exception. It is largely because we were founded on the idea that individuals should be allowed the freedom to pursue their own interest that we have seen such prosperity.