The List

Do you know Carlos Slim? He is, according to the list in Forbes Magazine, the richest man in the world. His net worth is fifty-seven billion dollars. That's up an estimated nineteen billion or so. The total number of billionaires has increased as well. The editors at Forbes were able to find one thousand, four hundred and twenty-six of them. The average net worth of a Forbes billionaire is nearly four billion, one hundred million dollars more than a year ago. More than two-thirds of the world’s richest added to their already bulging coffers. Only two hundred and fifty-nine from last year’s list are less fabulously well-to-do than a year ago. If you are unfamiliar with the CEO of Telmex, then you probably will still recognize number two on the list: Bill Gates.
Bill has managed to sock away an additional six billion dollars over the past year, in spite of the fact that he has given away more than twenty-eight billion dollars. He, along with most of the rest of this list, can't seem to give money away fast enough. Warren Buffett must be doing something right, since he managed to donate enough to charity to slip out of the top three richest humans for the first time this century. Maybe part of that slip has to do with the twenty-three billion dollars he spent buying condiments. There is a woman in the top ten for the first time since 1999. Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the L'Oreal fortune, managed to unload her island getaway to a wildlife conservation concern for a profit. It's nice when these folks can do good and still make some extra spending money.
And this is the part where I break in and tell you that I have no idea where I fit into this continuum. I'm not even sure that I do, but logically it follows that if this list contains the richest person, then following it to its extreme would put you squarely on the poorest. Seven billion people, and climbing. I suppose the price of buying the world a Coke keeps going up too, so I guess these folks had better keep making money.