If the system were not rigged to produce pocket billionaires, one may consider the list of names here as testaments to hard work and dedication. But banking families, who have trillions of dollars in wealth are suspiciously absent from the below list. For me this is just one more data point lending further credence to the notion the whole system is a gigantic musical chairs game, with the real players never getting up when the music starts.
Many of these on this list would have a very different ranking if the USD were not the world’s reserve currency and artificially high as a result of that. Not all wealthy people inherited it, not all got because of great crimes of history, some worked very hard for it all. And money is a perception, wealth is not the number of FRNs in your bank account, a lot of very wealthy people have an equally large (or more) amount of debt owed. And truly mind boggling wealthy people don’t show any wealth much at all, for its all hidden behind “charitable trusts” and the like…. still this is a very interesting list of where much of the wealth of this planet is concentrated.
The list however seems to leave out the 13 western banking families, and the dragon families… and concentrates on those who are politically active in visible ways… -AK
from: http://www.stage2omega.com/finally-list-of-80-people-with-as-much-money-as-12-of-humanity/
April 12, 2015
by Michael Thomas for Exposing The Truth
Since the “financial repression,” the most powerful people have only gotten more powerful. A 2013 Oxfam report found that 80 people had as much wealth as 1/2 of humanity, and a few months later Forbes said the number had dropped to 67. Many of us asked who exactly these people are, and now the list has been released.
RANK NAME 2014 WEALTH COUNTRY SELF-MADE? SECTOR
(IN BILLIONS)
2 Carlos Slim Helu $72 Mexico ✓ Telecom
3 Amancio Ortega $64 Spain ✓ Retail
4 Warren Buffett $58 USA ✓ Finance
5 Larry Ellison $48 USA ✓ Tech
6 Charles Koch $40 USA Diversified
7 David Koch $40 USA Diversified
8 Sheldon Adelson $38 USA ✓ Entertainment
9 Christy Walton $37 USA Retail
10 Jim Walton $35 USA Retail
11 Liliane Bettencourt $35 France Product
12 Stefan Persson $34 Sweden Retail
13 Alice Walton $34 USA Retail
14 S. Robson Walton $34 USA Retail
15 Bernard Arnault $34 France Luxury
16 Michael Bloomberg $33 USA ✓ Finance
17 Larry Page $32 USA ✓ Tech
18 Jeff Bezos $32 USA ✓ Retail
19 Sergey Brin $32 USA ✓ Tech
20 Li Ka-shing $31 Hong Kong ✓ Diversified
21 Mark Zuckerberg $29 USA ✓ Tech
22 Michele Ferrero $27 Italy Food
23 Aliko Dangote $25 Nigeria ✓ Commodities
24 Karl Albrecht $25 Germany ✓ Retail
25 Carl Icahn $25 USA ✓ Finance
26 George Soros $23 USA ✓ Finance
27 David Thomson $23 Canada Media
28 Lui Che Woo $22 Hong Kong ✓ Entertainment
29 Dieter Schwarz $21 Germany Retail
30 Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud $20 Saudi Arabia ✓ Finance
31 Forrest Mars Jr. $20 USA Food
32 Jacqueline Mars $20 USA Food
33 John Mars $20 USA Food
34 Jorge Paulo Lemann $20 Brazil ✓ Drinks
35 Lee Shau Kee $20 Hong Kong ✓ Diversified
36 Steve Ballmer $19 USA ✓ Tech
37 Theo Albrecht Jr. $19 Germany Retail
38 Leonardo Del Vecchio $19 Italy ✓ Luxury
39 Len Blavatnik $19 USA ✓ Diversified
40 Alisher Usmanov $19 Russia ✓ Extractives
41 Mukesh Ambani $19 India Extractives
42 Masayoshi Son $18 Japan ✓ Telecom
43 Michael Otto $18 Germany Retail
44 Phil Knight $18 USA ✓ Retail
45 Tadashi Yanai $18 Japan ✓ Retail
46 Gina Rinehart $18 Australia Extractives
47 Mikhail Fridman $18 Russia ✓ Extractives
48 Michael Dell $18 USA ✓ Tech
49 Susanne Klatten $17 Germany Cars
50 Abigail Johnson $17 USA Finance
51 Viktor Vekselberg $17 Russia ✓ Metals
52 Lakshmi Mittal $17 India Metals
53 Vladimir Lisin $17 Russia ✓ Transport
54 Cheng Yu-tung $16 Hong Kong ✓ Diversified
55 Joseph Safra $16 Brazil ✓ Finance
56 Paul Allen $16 USA ✓ Tech
57 Leonid Mikhelson $16 Russia ✓ Extractives
58 Anne Cox Chambers $16 USA Media
59 Francois Pinault $16 France ✓ Retail
60 Iris Fontbona $16 Chile Extractives
61 Azim Premji $15 India Tech
62 Mohammed Al Amoudi $15 Saudi Arabia ✓ Extractives
63 Gennady Timchenko $15 Russia ✓ Extractives
64 Wang Jianlin $15 China ✓ Real Estate
65 Charles Ergen $15 USA ✓ Telecom
66 Stefan Quandt $15 Germany Cars
67 Germán Larrea Mota Velasco $15 Mexico Extractives
68 Harold Hamm $15 USA ✓ Extractives
69 Ray Dalio $14 USA ✓ Finance
70 Donald Bren $14 USA ✓ Real Estate
71 Georg Schaeffler $14 Germany Product
72 Luis Carlos Sarmiento $14 Colombia ✓ Finance
73 Ronald Perelman $14 USA ✓ Finance
74 Laurene Powell Jobs $14 USA Entertainment
75 Serge Dassault $14 France Aviation
76 John Fredriksen $14 Cyprus ✓ Transport
77 Vagit Alekperov $14 Russia ✓ Extractives
78 John Paulson $14 USA ✓ Finance
79 Rupert Murdoch $14 USA ✓ Media
80 Ma Huateng $13 China ✓ Tech
These are the same people, very likely, keeping the “filter” on our representative democracy. Do you feel uncomfortable about the fact that many of these people have seen their wealth increase drastically while at the same time the middle class shrinks and “austerity” is demanded almost globally outside of Sweden and Norway. It makes me feel uncomfortable that the political influence of these people have served to increase their wealth and weaken regulations, and I suggest we seek meaningful changes on a systemic level.
What Bernie Sanders had to say in his meme about wealth inequality is true, and it is most certainly not an accident.
_________
Source:
https://stillnessinthestorm.com/2015/04/finally-list-of-80-people-with-as-muc/
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