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Forbes Fictional 15
DevanJedi writes "Forbes has created a list of 15 wealthy fictional characters with hilarious biographies describing the sources of their riches. Lex Luthor, C. Montgomery Burns and Bruce Wayne figure in the list, among others. J.R. Ewing was dropped from the list this year after 'Ewing Oil filed for bankruptcy in the wake of massive accounting scandal.'"
hilarious biographies
That's a bit of an exaggeration.
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History of Santa Claus
1689--Spanish-German explorer Santa Claus discovers the North Pole, and establishes a small base camp.
1691--Because of harsh and meager living conditions, Claus' crew abandons him.
1692--Claus is rescued by the Viking ship Hvorfor. He returns to Europe, bringing some items along with him from the North Pole. He finds he is able to sell them quite easily, making a small profit.
1703--Claus saves up enough money to buy a small ship and crew, and returns to the North Pole. Upon arriving, he finds his base camp, half-buried but still intact.
1704--Claus returns to Europe with a shipload of North Pole artifacts, and is successful in selling them. He makes enough profit to increase his crew, and buys building materials to expand his polar base.
1705--Claus returns again to the North Pole, and builds quarters for him and his crew, and sets up the Polar Exports Company.
1716--After six shiploads of exports, the European market is flooded with polar artifacts, as well as the phony ones making charlatans rich. Seeing this decline, Claus decides to invest his money by starting a toy company in his native Germany.
1720--Claus Toys becomes the largest toy company in Germany, but only because of Claus' underhanded business dealings. (It was also rumored that Claus was dealing with enemy countries as well). Competitors urged government officials to begin an investigation.
1721--Enough evidence is found, and charges are drawn up against the Claus Toys Company. Claus himself refuses to release his records.
1722--The German Supreme Court finds Claus guilty of tax evasion and of treason. When news of this breaks, Claus' employees all turn against him and his company.
1723--Claus is exiled to Sicily, and shortly before leaving, he absconds with all of the company's funds.
1724--A search party is sent to the Mediterranean to recover the funds, however, Claus hears of this ahead of time, and he and his Sicilian wife flee for their lives. (Some say he went into Northern Africa, but it is generally assumed that this was only a ruse to lure the searchers off course. He is believed to have returned to his North Pole base).
1725--Claus II is born en route to the North Pole.
1725-1734--The Claus' lay low at the North Pole. Claus teaches his son the arts of toy making and business dealings.
1735--Rumor has it that Claus has hired Scandinavian builders to construct a castle for him at the North Pole, making use of almost half of the company funds.
1739--The castle is finished, and is one of the largest in the world. Claus II reaches his fifteenth birthday, and in the same year, Claus' wife dies, accidentally falling from a balcony in one of the castle's great halls.
1740--Claus, mourning his wife, becomes increasingly ill.
1745--Santa Claus II becomes of age, and begins taking care of the castle and of his sick father.
1747--Using the remaining company funds, Claus II builds a small city around the castle to attract workers and craftsmen.
1748--Word of the North Pole settlement reaches Europe. The Elves of Eastern Europe, quickly becoming political outcasts and striving for a better life, begin immigrating in waves to the North Pole.
1753--All the elves have left Eastern Europe and have become firmly established at the North Pole. Claus II begins his father's toy company once again, with an estimated 30,000 elves employed. Claus I dies, at age 89.
1755--The North Pole officially becomes a nation, and Claus II and his wife take the throne. The toy business continues to flourish, and the elves enjoy prosperity. Claus III is born.
1757--The great stables are built, and scientists are secretly hired by Claus II to begin an ambitious project--that of breeding and training reindeer to fly.
1773--The flying reindeer are achieved and become Claus II and III's major form of transportation.
1774--A mutant reindeer, named Rudolf, is born whose nose emits light. He b
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Elves bemoan low-wages, lack of health care coverage and union-busting tactics of "Claws." Factory operations also dogged by several documented instances of child-labor. Santa retorts that "immortal" Elves don't need health insurance, and says child-workers were being punished for being "naughty."
... which is kind of sad. We live in a very troubled world right now, but even Forbes plays off it well with bits like "Daddy" Warbucks and his Iraq defense contracts. It's nice to see that there can still be some good humor thrown around =)
Forbes did a great job with these biographies, and the quote above is one of my favorites. It has to be one of the more entertaining things that I've read in some time.
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None of these are anywhere close to Roger Zelazny's Francis Sandow. He was rich enough to own planets.
Lara Croft is rich? I didn't know that. i never paid attention to the story, only to her breasts.
Good to see both the "Scrooge"s on the list. Looks like Uncle Scrooge is still making some good money after all these years.
I would also maybe think that number 16 on the list could be Mr. Lodge from Archie, Veronica Lodge's father.
His elves are on strike. Mr. Claus responded by saying, "I assure you that this year's quota will be reached." He would not respond to questions as to how this will be done.
/.ed his server, some mirrors: Coral Cache.)
(Since I'm fairly certain that my friend will kill me if he found out I
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Nonsense, according to Carl Barks himself:
Source: Uncle Carl - His Life and Times
Anybody knows where I can download the tape ?
I have it on good authority that he does not in fact exist. As as evil corporation Microsoft decided early on that having a whiny nerd as a leader would help make them seem harmless. The guy that plays Bill Gates is actually a Second City alumn from Toronto.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
They missed some far more interesting characters:
Gregory "Elephant" Pelton, hier to the Jumpshift teleportation fortune, from Niven's Known Space universe.
"Hotblack" Desiato, lead singer from Disaster Area.
Woodrow Wilson Smith, a.k.a. Lazarus Long. (being exceptionally long lived does have its benefits when ammassing wealth).
In the same vein, Mr. "Flint" from ST:TOS.
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http://www.forbes.com/2002/08/12/0812deadintro.htm l
Its impressive to make that much money, not only in retirement, but when you've been dead for years.
Hell, everything they write about technology seems to me to be entirely agenda driven and certainly manageds to avoid inconvenient facts. They've declared Notes dead a half dozen times in teh last 15 years for a variety of reasons. They've come out against blogs, then blogged. Dan Lyons is a great example of this. Search google on Dan Lyons and Domino and see what people are saying (or click here hostit1.connectria.com/twduff/home.nsf/plinks/TDUF -6CC4UD for a rundown).
I won't even link to a Forbes article any more.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
What happened to Dr. Evil?? We know he was worth big bucks, Number 2 said so!
He saved a bunch of money on his car insurance...
'Ewing Oil filed for bankruptcy in the wake of massive accounting scandal.'"
Realistically, how could any oil company go bankrupt, even with a "massive accounting scandal"? They practically are minting money at the refinary.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
He got jacked when he escaped the country with Homer and Smithers, remember? :P
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1. Peter Parker - makes ends meet by selling pix. He's a friggin genius, so he sells pictures!?!? WTF
....
2. apparently every other criminal other than Lex. Because they have no $$, they're constantly robbing banks etc.
3. The simpsons. Same old POS car for what, 12+ years now?
4. Fry from Futurama - nuff said there.
5. Wolverine - Sponging off old Professor X. Wolvie is older than the old prof, but evidently never invested his earnings from the old days. I guess even if he did, he can't remember where he put the investments. He should have a decent Canadian pension though.
6. Robin - suck up some of ol' Bruce's wealth wouldja?
7. Any of Jed Clampet's neighbors. Moonshine doesn't make that much $$
8. Harry Potter - maybe his parent's left him a trust fund for when he turns 18? Until then
9. Drizzt Do'Urden - yea another guy who could be rich as hell, but decides to go the goody two shoes route. His Dwarf King buddy finances his exploits. (Salvatore novels)
10. Jimmy the Hand (as a kid) - (Feist novels) - yea, he was poor as hell, but he took advantage of a a good thing (Arutha) and eventually turned his fortune around. He was poor as hell for awhile though.
...when a magazine and writer are repeatedly wrong in the same direction against the same products year after year even when showed evidence to the contrary each time, yes. They're off my read-list.
When that same writer repeatedly stands up for astroturfing analyst firms whos editorial process includes calling the superiors of a blogger and attempting to have the person fired, they're off my read-list.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Harry Potter has a vault full of gold in Gringotts, the goblin bank. Indeed, he has so much gold that he gave away the 1000 Galleons that he won from the Tri-Wizard tournament. Harry Potter may be poor for his first few years, but as soon as he started going to school, he got what was coming to him.
Really. It looks like a majority of the rich fictional characters listed received their fortunes by inheritance, not through their own efforts.
Is that a wry criticism of the failure of capitalism?
(Probably not)
" If this list is for the still living..."
It's not, fictional characters were never ever alive to begin with.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Everyone knows that Batman's super power is that he's richer than God. I believe that puts Bruce Wayne firmly in the #1 position.
The Money Bin is at least 20 meters on each side. That's 8000 cubic
meters. Take away the room for Scrooge's office and as a lower bound
assume hexagonal closest packing of spherical gold coins, that leaves
about 5500 m^3 of gold. At a specific weight of 19320kg/m^3 and
today's closing gold price of $506 per troy oz, that's 1.66 _trillion_
dollars. And then there are his mining, shipping, ranching and other
interests...
I really don't get it.
How can Richie Rich, a certified nobody and fictional at that, be richer than old McDuck?
And ole Santa? They surely aren't quite as serious as they ought to be when it comes to fictional wealth.
That being said, Scrooge McDuck is the richest, sexiest and whatever.
20 minutes into the future