Tech Rich Get Richer

theodp writes "The economy is improving, at least for the super rich. After two years of declines, the aggregate net worth of the U.S.'s wealthiest 400 citizens leapt 10% in the past year to $995 billion, according to Forbes' annual ranking. The gains are part of a continuing shift in wealth from the East coast to the tech-centric West. Bill Gates capped off a decade in the top spot after his fortune increased by $3B to $46B. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen held onto 3rd place, his net worth rising $1B to $22B. Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who saw his fortune expand by more than $3B to $5.1B, was the top gainer on the list. And with a measly $1.4B, Jerry Yang of Yahoo! found himself in a 16-way tie for 162nd place."

Comments

Yay

[sque]

And all i have is baked beans and spam.

55 Billion

[Anonymous Coward]

55,000,000,000
50 Years 1,100,000,000
12 months 91,666,667
4 weeks 22,916,667
7 days 3,273,810
24 hours 136,409

He could spend 136 Grand an hour for the next 50 years & still have money over, even without interest.

That's a HellOfALotOf Gin & Tonics.

D

16-way tie?

[Diphthong]

"Jerry Yang of Yahoo! found himself in a 16-way tie for 162nd place."

C'mon, Jerry! Go mow a few lawns or something. Break that tie!

I'll tell you what I would do with all that money.

[CausticPuppy]

Two chicks at the same time.

What bothers me

[ShooterNeo]

What bothers me is there is no conceivable way these individuals could have performed over a billion dollars worth of labor, ever. I'm not advocating communism or socialism, I'm just pointing out a basic truth. None of these people could have conceivably done more useful work than the entire lifetimes work of thousands of people.

Sure, corporate CEOs and super rich are much more productive than the average person....but their brains still tick at a mere 1000hz. They can still only speak at a slowish 150wpm and listen at the same rate. Their memories still have limited durations like all other mortal humans. It just isn't physically possible for them to have done the work of 10,000 other people.

The money was not earned, it was stolen. In most cases, the money was stolen from the shareholders of the corporation in question, who by rights should have either had the money in dividends or seen the money re-invested in the corporate machine.

In some cases, the money was stolen from fortunes made by the ideas and productive results of employees of the company. Does anyone truly believe Jobs invented the imac and made it's phenomenal success possible? If you believe that, ask Wozniac what Jobs did with Wozniac's work at Atari.

Before someone accuses me of the obvious : no, I am personally involved in any of this. I'm simply noting the truth.

Re:What bothers me

[chrisbw]

Now hold on a minute here, accusing these people of stealing is taking things a BIT far.

What you're failing to recognize is the difference between net worth and salary. Salary is generally recognized as a compensation for labor.

Gates and Jobs, for example, were founders of their companies. They took risks, they had good ideas, and they had the leadership to drive their companies to financial success (you can argue amonst yourselves about the technical success of their products, but the financial accomplishments of their companies is pretty evident).

Most of their net worth came about through equity that they have as the founders of these companies, NOT through their salaries. Yes, their salaries are high, but not $40 billion high. Most of this net worth was accumulated through the appreciation of their equity.

Re:News for Nerds?

[AKnightCowboy]

Look at Bill Gates. He hasn't always been rich, now he has more money than anybody.

Well, actually yes, he was always rich. His parents were lawyers. Do you think he just got an academic scholarship to Harvard and decided to flunk out? Now, he probably wasn't super-rich like he is now, but most of us would kill someone for $1 million. With the right investing you could live nicely on that for the rest of your life without working.

What a @#%!*ing myth.

[Damek]

The American Dream is about freedom to pursue your own life, it's not about getting rich. Any given newborn in America has probably a better chance of winning their state lottery (when they're of age to participate of course) than of getting rich and/or famous through any of the means you mentioned.

The "you could do it too" dream is a lie we sell ourselves so we don't get all upset about all the rich who actually control things, who take our money and don't have to run because we all love them. The master/servant relationship is alive today in America. The middle class are the servants.

Each day we get one step closer to returning to out-and-out feudalism as those in power work to concentrate more and more power.

We have to work against them to get back to the REAL American Dream - freedom, democracy, and equal opportunities for all. The Ayn Randian everyone-for-herself, you-too-could-be-a-billionaire world view is not equal opportunity for everyone. There is no equality when you start from an immensely unbalanced power structure. We can build a better world, we just have expend some effort to get there. Effort we can't be bothered to spend if we're all deluding ourselves about our chances of one day being a master over our own little band of slaves.

(I would start by imposing percentage-based salary caps on the richest citizens - there's no conceivable way that any human can be worth as much as the super-rich make. It's ridiculous. And no, just because they can dupe others into allowing them to have that much is not an excuse. Just because a thief can grab somebody's wallet does not give him the right to that person's wallet.)

Think *wealth*, not *dollars*

[Tackhead]

>
> > "The last I heard, the median for income earners in America was $27,000 per year... doesn't sound so poor to me."
>
> True enough, until you account for the cost of living in America.

This all started when someone posted that Marxian meme that "The rich get richer, the poor get poorer".

BULLSHIT.

Then people started talking about median and/or average incomes in dollars. Nice, but you're missing the point. You're thinking about dollars, but dollars are useless without wealth.

If you want to know how "the poor" are doing, you've gotta be talking "wealth".

My grandparents were working class. Their idea of a "fridge" was a block of ice. Their idea of "luxury" was cranking ice cream by hand in a steel container surrounded by rock salt and ice chunks. And it took days to cross the Atlantic, a trip that was only for the Filthy Rich.

My parents were working class. Their idea of "comfort" was when they got air conditioning. Their idea of "luxury" was when they went from black and white to a color TV. And took hours to cross the Atlantic, and that was only for the Pretty Well Off.

I'm working class. When I was a kid, my idea of "cool" was the 3D graphics in "Tron", and my idea of "luxury" was a Cray Supercomputer I could call my own. And from my 2.0 GHz laptop with 3D card with T&L capabilities, I can alt-Tab out of Max Payne, and with a few mouse clicks, cross the Atlantic (alas, it still takes a few hours) for half the price of the laptop.

And I can show my grandparents that laptop.

I don't mind if Bill Gates has enough money to fly to the moon for his vacation. Because if someone builds commercial space tourism for the Bill Gateses of the world, I can rest easy knowing that by the time I'm in my hip-fracture years, I'll be living them in 1/6 gravity.

The rich are getting richer, but only linearly. One can eat only so much caviar per hour. Wherever capitalism has flourished, however, the poor, on the other hand, have done fantastic.

Not even true in the way YOU mean it

[FredFnord]

The poorest of the poor, the ones who are still paying taxes but just barely, but who are responsible enough not to have children that they can't afford, got exactly no tax cut at all. So did the ones who aren't paying taxes, of course. (And yes, they could have: there have been ideas on the books for giving credits to people who don't earn a living wage.) But you wouldn't count those, because they're not 'important', right?

And, of course, you're still being disingenuous. The recent tax cuts were enormously disproportionately aimed at the wealthiest 5% of the population, and designed really not to benefit anyone else, like those who would actually spend the money and stimulate the economy. (Large increases in spending/purchasing are a much better economic stimulus than large increases in investment with no increases in spending, which is what these tax cuts give us. Ask any rational economist.)

And given that this tax cut is likely to be made permanent, and that we're likely to be hit with a full-on capital gains tax moratorium if Bush is reelected, you will have the amusing experience of seeing large numbers of the richest five percent in the country (the 'idle rich') paying literally no federal income taxes at all, whle the middle class works to support the infrastructure of the country that they enjoy. Reagan tried to do that several times, and I believe Bush Sr. did as well.

Bush's economic team is on record as saying, and I believe this is an exact quote, that they needed to 'shift the tax burden down the income spectrum'. I.e., the rich should pay less in taxes and the middle class pay more. You may agree with this, and that's your perogative, but if you claim it's not happening you're either being blind or you're deliberately trying to make it easier for the administration.

Either way, pretty sad.

-fred