Scum floats to the top

Once more its the time of the year that Forbes magazine produces its annual rich list .

At the top , Carlos Slim with a net worth at $53.5bn (£35.7bn). Slim's wealth edged ahead of the $53bn fortune amassed by the Microsoft boss Bill Gates. In third place was the Warren Buffett with $47bn, completing a triumvirate that has occupied the top three positions for five successive years.

Little has changed in the UK ,too , among the ranks of the super-rich. Behind the Duke of Westminster came property developers David and Simon Reuben, the Top Shop boss Sir Philip Green and Virgin supremo Sir Richard Branson.

Economists say that a rapid rise in super-wealthy individuals from the developing world reflects the pace of globalisation, with cross-border stockmarkets allowing international investors to pump funds at the touch of a button into major corporations in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

"It's symptomatic of the spread of globalisation, the spread of market economies and the maturing of financial markets in these countries," said Homi Kharas, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "These are paper billionaires. The values being placed on their companies have shot up and that's a result of stock exchanges in these countries being a bit better developed and being able to gain foreign investment." But, Kharas added, it also points to a widening in inequality between the "haves" and the "have nots" in poorer parts of the world. "In India, for example, you see some particularly conspicuous consumption and when that's juxtaposed against the grinding poverty of the rest of the nation, it surely does have an effect on social stability," he said.

Crowned the richest man in the world , Carlos Slim , is from Mexico. The Mexican minimum wage is 46 pesos per day, about £2.20, or $4 US Dollars. There is little or no welfare state and no unemployment benefit. The bottom 40% of the population share only 11% of the wealth and live below the Mexican poverty line.