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Bill Gates No Longer World's Richest Man
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.
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, the foundation donates $1.5 billion per year. And a BusinessWeek estimate lists Gates as having donated $28.1 billion over his whole life.
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/philanthropy_individual/
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
Gates spent 30-40 billions on charity, if he didn't, still would've been #1.
You can't handle the truth.
No, you can't. That's flat out wrong. This is a common misunderstanding of the progressive tax system. Just because your maximum bracket is 35% doesn't mean you pay 35% on your entire income. You pay 35% on the income *above* the previous bracket. Anything below that line is taxed at the lower brackets. For 2009, the first $8,350 of a single person's income is taxed at 10%, then 15% for the amount between $8,351– $33,950, 25% for $33,951 – $82,250, etc. This is the case no matter how much they earn.
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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.
NO SIG
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.
It's not just stocks. In a recession a lot of things are under-priced and being sold for what everyone involved knows is way below value.
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)
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
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.