Odds that Gates is still world’s richest man? Slim
Bill Gates has never been comfortable with the title of richest man in the world, telling an interviewer last year, “I wish I wasn’t. There’s nothing good that comes out of that.” Now it looks like his wish has come true. A Mexican financial news service is reporting today that Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú, who eased past investment guru Warren Buffett into second place in the most recent Forbes magazine annual wealth tally, has now bumped Gates out of first. Sentido Común reported that a recent surge in the stock of Slim’s America Movil group boosted his fortune to an estimated $67.8 billion, versus Gates’ meager $59.2 billion.
Gates and Buffett, of course, have started turning their attention toward giving away chunks of their money. And with his new title spotlighting Mexico’s tremendous disparity in income, Slim will also be stepping up his charitable efforts. “Poverty is resolved with education and jobs,” he told the New York Times. “You don’t need to teach a man how to fish, as the Chinese used to say. Instead of giving him the fish, instead of teaching him how to fish, you have to teach him how to sell the fish so that he eats something else besides a fish.” Or something like that.
All this really means is that the very rich have oodles of different ways of telling the poor what they need to do to get more fish. Oddles of advice, but no actual fish.
What I find to be refreshing is the reminder that greed is part of the human condition…not just an American trait.
Your quote from Mr. Slim is, I checked, verbatim from the New York Times, and a classic in its own right! “Or something like that,” indeed. Of course being a wealthy man, the main press on him is extremely complimentary. You have to get to page 8 of a Google search to find any indications of the corruption required to become the richest man in Mexico (http://tinyurl.com/2sxbyw
).
As The First Post points out (http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?storyID=6485), “There is, of course, a basic problem with Slim Helu’s fortune. How did he amass it in a country which ranks 55th in GDP per capita, between Libya and Equatorial Guinea?”
Even Time magazine reported in April: “Whereas Gates’ wealth reflects America’s tech leadership, Slim’s riches —despite the sweat and savvy that built them — tend to symbolize Mexico’s archaic system of monopolies and oligopolies, which helps keep almost half the nation’s population in poverty by choking oxygen away from the rest of the economy. Gates’ fortune is part of an engine that creates jobs; Slim’s, say critics, is part of an order that sends Mexican migrants across the U.S. border looking for them.”
Give a man a match and he’s warm for a minute.
Light him on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
Burma!
“I think greed is the root of all evil in one way are another”. Of the seven deadly sins greed is number one!
J.B
That’s good to hear. Richest man in the world title needs to be shared often. Maybe Bill Gates would want to step up, or someone else. I hope the new richest man greatly gives back to his country Mexico. After all it was they who help got him there, on the TOP.