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Bill Gates Drops To Number 2
A number of readers made sure we know that Bill Gates is apparently no longer the world's richest person. His wealth, estimated currently at $59.2 billion, has been surpassed by that of Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim. Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant, runs businesses in a number of industries from Mexico City. Stock in his wireless company, American Movil, recently surged in price by 27%, boosting his net worth to $67.8 billion. Last April Slim passed Warren Buffet, who had long held down the number 2 spot. In this audio Bill Gates says he won't care when he is no longer number 1.
I just watched the 'complimentary' download from Xbox Live Marketplace of Austin Powers. It looks like Bill is now on par with Robert Wagner as 'Number 2'. Coincidence? I think not.
In other news, Slim is now (apparently) Dr. Evil. Go figure.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Meh, let me know when someone surpasses Rockefeller. In today's dollars, he would have been worth around $200 billion. And you wanna talk about monopolies, predatory pricing, and anti-trust? The Sherman Antitrust Act was DIRECTED at Rockefeller's Standard Oil.
Oh, I guess since it was over 100 years ago, no one cares anymore.
Telmex and Microsoft use the same monopolistic practices, Gates and Slim are not very different.
They both may be monopolies, but there IS quite a difference. The difference is that Telmex *IS* a competitive and efficient company. If it wasn't for Slim's investment in telecom infrastructure, we mexicans would still be calling the state-driven phone company to complain that our 24K modems disconnect too often. I do remember those times... Slim practically saved the country from stagnating in the information era.
Microsoft is an artificial monopoly, reeking with planned obsolescence and lack of innovation. In contrast, Telmex already gives us the videophone service.
Slim was one of the first traders in mexican stock market (before he was stock operator in usa) but really become mega-rich after getting TelMex from the goverment (at that time the monopolic, state owned telephony company) from former mexican presindent Carlos Salinas (due to corruption)
Talk about, how not to sell a state monopoly: just making it private, instead of dividing it to form a competitive market. To this day méxico suffers from that.
America-Movil its the celular telephony company from Grupo CarSO (Carlos Slim keiretsu that started with TelMex)
Today CarSO participates in the telephony of most countries in latinamerica, and soon also in spain
Both Gates and Slim are unfair market monopolist... because the ones in power dont care
LOSE!! It's LOSE! The only way you could 'loose' money is by untying it, or making it less tight.
Gah. Other than that your post is correct.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
has Slim put into philanthropy? To anyone who found this question relevant (I was almost expecting "none" - and thus making the Gates foundation a very easy explanation on the #1 move), Forbes says the following (plus a lot of other interesting stuff) of the man's new project:
"Lately Carlos Slim has taken up a particular interest in philanthropy, a pursuit he had neglected for most of the years he was building his businesses. He formed a foundation 23 years ago and funded it with a few million, and it has done little since then. A year ago Slim infused it with $1.8 billion; in the fall he pledged to donate up to $10 billion to the foundation in the next four years to fund health and education programs."
It is somehow good to see the world's richest doing this kind of stuff. Of course, it's not like they couldn't afford it, but still.
ISO certified == THX certified