An interactive, up-to-date listing of where all the money is.
January 25, 2013 1:24 AM   Subscribe

Revamped visual data on the world's billionaires: Bloomberg Billionaires
posted by molecicco (47 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
via Wired
posted by molecicco at 1:28 AM on January 25, 2013


Seems like Laurene Jobs is missing?
posted by empath at 1:34 AM on January 25, 2013


They're pretty good at hiding their tentacles.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:45 AM on January 25, 2013


Who is the richest woman who didn't inherit or marry the money?
posted by pracowity at 1:54 AM on January 25, 2013




100 people whose combined wealth could end global poverty.
posted by a non e mouse at 1:58 AM on January 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


100 people whose combined wealth could end global poverty.

That's nowhere near as fun as inflating economic bubbles and then popping them.
posted by maxwelton at 2:03 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


100 people whose combined wealth could end global poverty.

If you split their wealth up between all of the people on earth, they'd each get less than $300 or so.
posted by empath at 2:09 AM on January 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


Tell that to the Sudanese.
posted by a non e mouse at 2:13 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm not poo-pooing how much value $300 would have for someone who is starving to death. But it would in no way shape or form 'end global poverty'
posted by empath at 2:17 AM on January 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


So, I guess it's OK to hoard all that wealth between so few people.
/strawman

I'd be interested to see it modelled, though: List of countries by distribution of wealth
posted by a non e mouse at 2:18 AM on January 25, 2013


Ignores a lot of women and all whitewashed.

and people say Bloomberg is RINO.
posted by fullerine at 2:23 AM on January 25, 2013


Yeah, I also noticed the lack of women, but they list only the top 100, the lowest of which has $10.7 billion already, significantly more than all of the richest self-made women in the link above.
posted by molecicco at 2:32 AM on January 25, 2013


I am not going to applaud more female billionaires, much in the same way I'm not going to demand that our oppressor class be more ethnically diverse. This is a class of people that should not exist in the first place.
posted by dunkadunc at 2:33 AM on January 25, 2013 [12 favorites]


18,000 children die every day of hunger, U.N. says

I wonder how many basic meals these 100 people could buy every day without putting a dent in their wealth?
posted by pracowity at 2:33 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


100 people whose combined wealth could end global poverty.

You see this quoted for truth, but it is based on a simplistic view, as if all that dosh is sitting in their current account waiting to be spent. It's largely tied up in the businesses they own or have invested in and no more liquid than saying that if Americans all sold their houses then we could direct the cash somewhere it was better needed.

I don't doubt the wealthy could help the poor considerably more, nor that extreme wealth inequality is a bad thing that needs fixing. But the argument that assets like businesses = cash is wrongheaded, leaving aside whether giving cash or assets alone would cure the deeper problems of why poverty occurs. And on that topic, there is a great book by academic Paul Collier on why dealing with poverty and the causes of poverty is not simple.

As a means of exposing huge wealth inequalities, then pointing to the wealth of some vs the poverty of others makes sense as a metaphor. As a practical solution for transferring wealth from one person to a group, it doesn't address the thorny issue of exactly how all that wealth could be released over and above the transfers of shares people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates already do. Even then, they're handing over billion dollar assets, but not billions of dollars of cash.
posted by MuffinMan at 3:26 AM on January 25, 2013 [3 favorites]


empath: "If you split their wealth up between all of the people on earth, they'd each get less than $300 or so."

That's better than nothing. Let's do it!
posted by barnacles at 3:37 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


As a practical solution for transferring wealth from one person to a group, it doesn't address the thorny issue of exactly how all that wealth could be released over and above the transfers of shares people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates already do. Even then, they're handing over billion dollar assets, but not billions of dollars of cash.

Right. Selling the shares is out of the question since it would tank the market and make them worthless. So I guess you'd have to give the shares to people. What would they do with them? They can't all sell them at once, because again, it would tank the market. And you can't eat a share of walmart.
posted by empath at 3:51 AM on January 25, 2013


I guess you can put them all in a trust and use the money to alleviate poverty, but that's exactly what Gates, Warren, etc, are already doing
posted by empath at 3:52 AM on January 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


Great, 2 down, 98 to go.
posted by a non e mouse at 4:13 AM on January 25, 2013 [4 favorites]


Looks like there are a bunch of women missing from this list.

I'm guessing not. The list is top one hundred only, and number 100 clocks in at over ten billion, so, not even close to a comprehensive billionaire list.
posted by BWA at 4:32 AM on January 25, 2013


Based solely on the caricatures, Sean Penn could play a hell of a good Alwaleed Al Saud, ya know?
posted by ShutterBun at 4:33 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Self-made" might be better labelled as simply "not inherited".
posted by gimonca at 5:38 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


I am not going to applaud more female billionaires, much in the same way I'm not going to demand that our oppressor class be more ethnically diverse. This is a class of people that should not exist in the first place.

Not all billionaires are oppressors. Many may be, but you can in fact become a billionaire just by being incredibly lucky and making a great product or managing your company well. Jobs and Gates are good examples of this, IMHO. Not every billionaire is Gina Rinehart.
posted by Aizkolari at 6:03 AM on January 25, 2013


How the Koch brothers (6 and 7 on this list) actually spend their spare cash:
A secretive funding organisation in the United States that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate "counter movement" to undermine the science of global warming [...]
posted by pracowity at 6:11 AM on January 25, 2013


These cartoons of rich people seem so much happier than the previous ones.
posted by cacofonie at 6:38 AM on January 25, 2013


Money isn't wealth. Moving money means the creation of wealth, broadly speaking. Money piling up in one place means there's a whole lot of wealth that isn't being created.
posted by Zalzidrax at 6:46 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


If you split their wealth up between all of the people on earth, they'd each get less than $300 or so.

According to the World Hunger Education Service, there are approximately 925 million hungry people in the world.

Let's say it takes 30,000 USD to feed each of them every year. That comes out to 18.5 billion dollars.

And there's a list, with cartoon faces, of 100 people whose net worth is over 10 billion dollars.

The 25,000 poorest people on the planet will be dead tomorrow.

And I don't know how to put this all together in any way that makes any kind of sense at all to me.
posted by MrVisible at 6:56 AM on January 25, 2013


It isn't really fungible wealth. Carlos Slim can't sell his holding tomorrow and realize any thing close to what his claimed net worth is. Its not like Warren Buffett has a billion dollars in a bank account.

Buffett famously doesn't pay dividends from the company he controls, and he's never sold a share. If he did the share price would collapse.

Not to mention the sort of egomania that comes hand in hand with building something like Inditex sort of emotionally precludes someone from selling.

Money isn't wealth. Moving money means the creation of wealth, broadly speaking. Money piling up in one place means there's a whole lot of wealth that isn't being created.

No, this is pretty wrong. Nearly all of the people are on this list because they own large amounts of operating businesses - that's the bulk of their net worth, not big piles of cash, houses and art. In terms of value, its basically just an accounting entry on their balance sheets. Those assets are valued by the market at some level, but those assets also generate money and reinvest it in their businesses or pay it to their employees. Some of it gets paid out in dividends in some cases, and that's how these folks buy their art and houses and Hermes shooting jackets.

I mean don't get me wrong, these folks are all fabulously rich in generally unimaginable ways, but their actual "I want to buy shit" capacity is magnitudes lower than what this website shows.
posted by JPD at 7:11 AM on January 25, 2013 [6 favorites]


I'm not on board with most redistribution arguments but the fact that 4 of the top 12 richest people in the world are Walton kids, whose DADDY made their money selling crappy goods to the poorest Americans, does make me go a little Bolshevik-y.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:27 AM on January 25, 2013 [5 favorites]


I like Gates. He might have had a head start in life, but he grew rich by giving the world something that was to its benefit. And now, he's giving the money to the poorest. That's good.

I hate Gerald Grosvenor. He was born rich and inherited all of his money and wealth in the form of land. He hasn't given anything to the world, but simply held onto his land and extracted wealth from others. When he dies his wealth will pass on to an equally worthless person. There's no good reason for his family to exist, and the economy would be better off without their (literal) rent-taking.
posted by Jehan at 8:16 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


I mean don't get me wrong, these folks are all fabulously rich in generally unimaginable ways, but their actual "I want to buy shit" capacity is magnitudes lower than what this website shows.

Is it? Warren Buffet may not have a billion dollars in cash stuffed in a mattress, but he has no shortage of banks who are only too happy to lend him as much money as he wants, at a comically low interest rate, and leveraged against his less liquid assets. Mark Zuckerberg took out a loan to buy his house.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:43 AM on January 25, 2013


sure, but the amount of leverage you can put on these assets prudently is low. I mean your example is sort proves the point - he borrowed 7 million on assets of 15 billion.
posted by JPD at 8:47 AM on January 25, 2013


I hate Gerald Grosvenor. He was born rich and inherited all of his money and wealth in the form of land. He hasn't given anything to the world, but simply held onto his land and extracted wealth from others. When he dies his wealth to pass on to an equally worthless person

I see your point, but you're actually incorrect and simplifying what Grosvenor the property company does. In stark contrast to the other large London landowning families (Howard de Walden Estate, Cadogan Estate, Ilchester and Portman Estates) Grosvenor is quite diverse and not just a rent taker. It is very heavily into retail property, rather than simply milking its large residential estates and has substantial assets outside the UK. Only half its property assets are in the UK.

Also, as a point of interest, his second daughter has spent over a decade working on prison reform.

His son is 22 and has a CV that reads, almost play for play, like David Cameron - Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon Club, First in PPE. He currently works for the UN. Whether that makes him worthless or not is your call, although I think it's a harsh one to condemn him for simply being born into wealth. While he is unequivocally a poster boy for gilded youth, he also isn't taking the carbon copy trust fund kid route one would expect.
posted by MuffinMan at 8:53 AM on January 25, 2013 [1 favorite]


ETA: You can margin marketable equities 50%, but don't forget you have to inject cash if your margin falls below 50%, so if Zuckerberg had borrowed 6 billion at the time of the IPO he would have had to have sold off another 3 billion in Facebook shares at their bottom post IPO. And he'd need to find 200 mil a year give or take in interest payments.

You can get better deals from like the First Republics of the world, but still its not free money.
posted by JPD at 8:54 AM on January 25, 2013


Interesting the relative scarcity of Chinese (or, at least, non-Hong Kong Chinese) entries. Presumably that will change in the fairly short term.
posted by yoink at 8:58 AM on January 25, 2013


His son is 22 and has a CV that reads, almost play for play, like David Cameron - Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon Club, First in PPE. He currently works for the UN.

IDK if you have that right

Nice Lapels tho.
posted by JPD at 8:59 AM on January 25, 2013


Interesting the relative scarcity of Chinese (or, at least, non-Hong Kong Chinese) entries. Presumably that will change in the fairly short term.

Methodology + a lack of interest in the children of high ranking party members showing up on the list.
posted by JPD at 9:00 AM on January 25, 2013


Let's say it takes 30,000 USD to feed each of them every year. That comes out to 18.5 billion dollars.

Um 30,000 times 925 million is 28 trillion dollars
posted by dabug at 9:04 AM on January 25, 2013


I see your point, but you're actually incorrect and simplifying what Grosvenor the property company does. In stark contrast to the other large London landowning families (Howard de Walden Estate, Cadogan Estate, Ilchester and Portman Estates) Grosvenor is quite diverse and not just a rent taker. It is very heavily into retail property, rather than simply milking its large residential estates and has substantial assets outside the UK. Only half its property assets are in the UK.
I dare say using landed wealth to buy more land is not exactly a contribution to society. Dynastic wealth harms the economy, while dynamic wealth strengthens it. The old crowds out the new, and only by paring back inherited wealth can earnt wealth truly grow.

Indeed, that Hugh Grosvenor works for the UN is rather a mark against him than for him. We don't need more wealthy elites running the world, but fewer. We need new ideas from people who have worked hard to get to where they are, not the same old rubbish from schoolboys. Those who grow up with a sense of entitlement to power and government are those least able to know how to use it for the greater good. Osborne and Cameron are not role models, but warnings of a terrible frozen up society that we risk sliding into. These people are feckless idiots, but wealth has torn down every barrier that usually keeps them in check.
posted by Jehan at 12:13 PM on January 25, 2013 [2 favorites]


there are approximately 925 million hungry people in the world.

Let's say it takes 30,000 USD to feed each of them every year. That comes out to 18.5 billion dollars.


925 million times 30,000 USD a year equals 27,750,000,000,000. That's 27.75 trillion dollars, each year.

(not that I disagree with distributing wealth more evenly, nor do I think it takes $30,000 to feed a person)
posted by BurnChao at 11:26 PM on January 25, 2013


realistically you can probably feed someone for $1000 a year, at least rice and beans.. which would be about 925 billion dollars. BUt then you start coming into problems of people not literally being able to eat money, and where does all that food come from?
posted by empath at 11:40 PM on January 25, 2013


I dare say using landed wealth to buy more land is not exactly a contribution to society. Dynastic wealth harms the economy, while dynamic wealth strengthens it. The old crowds out the new, and only by paring back inherited wealth can earnt wealth truly grow.

I don't think you understand what modern property companies like Grosvenor do. And specifically as it refers to Grosvenor and its diversification within a generation from inherited London residential property company to international commercial property, your distinction between inherited and dynamic wealth makes no sense to me.

Unlike, as mentioned up thread, the other large London landowning estates, which fit your description of rent takers more closely.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:12 AM on January 26, 2013


Can someone explain how, as displayed on the "plot" option, two of them have 94% of their wealth in cash assets?
posted by psoas at 8:55 AM on January 26, 2013


And apparently Bill Gates and Christy Watson both lost 18% of their net worth COMPARED TO YESTERDAY?
posted by molecicco at 11:35 AM on January 26, 2013


Who is the richest woman who didn't inherit or marry the money?

According to the visual, all the women inherited the money; none are labeled "self-made."
posted by John Cohen at 8:12 PM on January 26, 2013


Of course, that doesn't technically answer your question, but she's not in that visual.
posted by John Cohen at 8:13 PM on January 26, 2013


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