Friday, March 09, 2007

New Billionaires!!

The Forbes list is out, and there are now 946 people in the world with a net worth of $1 Billion or more. Wow.

Bill Gates is top dog again, no surprise, but the top 10 are otherwise fairly international. The highest ranked German is # 15. Discount grocery store chain Aldi, developed from his mother's corner grocery store, rocketed Karl Albrecht to #15 and his brother Theo to #20 (Theo also has connections to Trader Joe's) -- they are both ahead of the Waltons....

Here are some other cool stats, from the NPR broadcast this morning:

America is #1 with 415 billionaires
Germany is #2 with 55
and Russia is #3 --- to quote NPR, it is not a wealthy country, but rich in Oligarchs. So, crime really does pay.....

The richest person in China is a woman, Yan Cheung, who made her fortune in paper. The Chinese billionaries are my favs, I think --- there's also a man who made his fortune in Dumplings. Gotta love it -- and he's the official provider of dumplings to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Go, you, dumpling man.

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