Editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, Steve Forbes wrote in defence of the worlds’ billionaires: “The overwhelming majority of these people have moved ahead through meeting the needs and wants of other people, not through inheritances or crony capitalism. Their successes didn’t come at the expense of everyone else.”
The 1,426 billionaires on the Forbes Rich List have a net worth of $5.4 trillion ($5,400 billion), up from $4.6 trillion the previous year. The GDP of Germany is $3.6 trillion, of France $2.7 trillion, of the UK $2.4 trillion and of the Irish Republic €0.2 trillion.
To amass a fortune of $73 billion, as Carlos Slim has done in Mexico, requires a social system that rewards an elite spectacularly, inevitably to the detriment of the mass of the people. And so it is in Mexico. 44.2 per cent of the Mexican population (more than 49 million people) live below the poverty line.
Bill Gates’ fortune ($67 billion), in the main, has come about not from any extraordinary inventiveness on his part but from wise investment decisions which piggybacked on the effectiveness of others.
Amancio Ortega is the founder of Zara has come at the expense of some of the poorest people in the world in Asian sweatshops.
Warren Buffett’s fortune ($53.5 billion) has come largely from stock market gambling.
Larry Ellison ($43 billion) devised a database for the CIA in the 1970s which he named “Oracle”. But for the most part he has made his money also from investments, takeovers and mergers.
Charles and David Koch have made fortunes ($34 billion each) from investments; the latter has made a large part of his wealth from the manufacture of toilet rolls.
Li Ka-shing, made his fortune ($31 billion) initially from manufacturing plastic flowers.
Liliane Bettencourt’s fortune ($30 billion) comes from cosmetics firm L’Oréal, founded by her father and inherited by her.
Bernard Arnault’s wealth ($29 billion) comes in the main from cosmetics. He owns Christian Dior, which he bought.
But behind the billionaires and millionaires are the workers who actually do create all the wealth (occasionally helped by Nature). The Forbes Rich List vast wealth, their lavish lifestyles and the enormous power they wield over the rest of humanity is a result of the labour and toil of the working class. The apologists for the capitalist like Steve Forbes can pretend that they are ‘wealth creators’. In fact, what they have done is steal the product of the labour of others
The 1,426 billionaires on the Forbes Rich List have a net worth of $5.4 trillion ($5,400 billion), up from $4.6 trillion the previous year. The GDP of Germany is $3.6 trillion, of France $2.7 trillion, of the UK $2.4 trillion and of the Irish Republic €0.2 trillion.
To amass a fortune of $73 billion, as Carlos Slim has done in Mexico, requires a social system that rewards an elite spectacularly, inevitably to the detriment of the mass of the people. And so it is in Mexico. 44.2 per cent of the Mexican population (more than 49 million people) live below the poverty line.
Bill Gates’ fortune ($67 billion), in the main, has come about not from any extraordinary inventiveness on his part but from wise investment decisions which piggybacked on the effectiveness of others.
Amancio Ortega is the founder of Zara has come at the expense of some of the poorest people in the world in Asian sweatshops.
Warren Buffett’s fortune ($53.5 billion) has come largely from stock market gambling.
Larry Ellison ($43 billion) devised a database for the CIA in the 1970s which he named “Oracle”. But for the most part he has made his money also from investments, takeovers and mergers.
Charles and David Koch have made fortunes ($34 billion each) from investments; the latter has made a large part of his wealth from the manufacture of toilet rolls.
Li Ka-shing, made his fortune ($31 billion) initially from manufacturing plastic flowers.
Liliane Bettencourt’s fortune ($30 billion) comes from cosmetics firm L’Oréal, founded by her father and inherited by her.
Bernard Arnault’s wealth ($29 billion) comes in the main from cosmetics. He owns Christian Dior, which he bought.
But behind the billionaires and millionaires are the workers who actually do create all the wealth (occasionally helped by Nature). The Forbes Rich List vast wealth, their lavish lifestyles and the enormous power they wield over the rest of humanity is a result of the labour and toil of the working class. The apologists for the capitalist like Steve Forbes can pretend that they are ‘wealth creators’. In fact, what they have done is steal the product of the labour of others
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