Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Who are the world's richest people?

Can't balance your cheque book? Want to get really depressed about your negative bank balance?

Why not check out Bloomberg's interactive ranking of the world's richest people. The news agency has put some thought into this ranking, listing the top 100 of the 1 per cent by country, gender, industry, ages and sources of wealth.

To find out who is worth what, all you have to do is scroll over the sketches of the billionaires faces. The graphic even links to relevant news stories.

Combined, the total wealth of the 100 billionaires is a cool $2.1 trillion.

So, who makes it to the top 5?

Mexican businessman Carlos Slim is first on the list at $73.2 billion, Microsoft's Bill Gates is second  at $72.9 billion, Warren Buffet is at $60.2 billion, Spanish fashion czar Amancio Ortega (the clothing firm Zara is one of his) is worth $57.3 billion and Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad comes in at $56.5 billion.

Consequently numbers 6 and 7 are the politically conservative American brothers Charles and David Koch, who are both worth $45.4 billion each and are heavily interested in investing in American newspapers.

The only woman in the top 10 is Christy Walton, at number 9, who is worth $38.5 billion. She's the widow of John Walton, one of the sons of Sam Walton, the man who gave the world Walmart.

As for the Canadians on the list, there are only two -- media mogul David Thomson ranks 22nd with $25.1 billion and Galen Weston barely rounds out the top 100, coming in at number 90 with $11.6 billion.

Read it and weep.

Original Article
Source: thestar.blogs.com/worlddaily
Author: Tanya Talaga 

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