

Warren Buffett is now the richest man in the world (beating Bill Gates after 13 years). - falsestprophet
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_Warren-Buffett_C0R3.html

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kingnothing
Since he is already obligated to give the majority of his stock to the B&M
Gates Foundation, shouldn't that be subtracted from his net worth as it is an
outstanding debt, so to speak?

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rms
I see it like a will, you don't subtract someone's will out of their net
worth. He just set it up even more formally than a will because you need to
take billions of dollars very seriously.

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mdemare
But you can change a will. Can he back out of this?

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Xichekolas
He wouldn't want to, and neither would his children or grandchildren, from
what I have read.

Even donating 99% of his net worth, his family will still have over half a
billion dollars, which is more than enough for down to earth people. And I'm
not even sure he is donating that much.

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j1o1h1n
Truely richer than Putin?

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moog
That's an interesting question. Buffet is clearly the "world's richest man"
measured by the criteria used by the author of this article. I suspect there
are many people in the world who are 'richer', but we don't know about them
because they operate in the 'black' economy or appear much further down the
'official' list.

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pchristensen
How many people do you think there are? You'd have to a) control vast
resources or businesses, b) make sure no legit journalist in the entire world
can tie you to it, and c) not care about achieving higher returns by investing
in legitimate options, d) grow to that fortune without using mainstream
investment options, and e) restrain your spending enough that you don't arouse
suspicion. Not to mention that a huge, illicit fortune would be worth less
than face value because it would be less liquid than a legitimate fortune.

Let's look at the top 3:

Buffet: started one of the most successful investment funds ever, which now
owns most of Coca Cola and many insurance companies, among other giant,
prominent copmanies

Helu: owns most of the telecom in Central and South America

Gates: started and ran the largest software company in the world, running on
~1B computers. Was one of the biggest business and technology success stories
of the century.

You have to be prominent to get those big numbers.

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moog
I dunno, haven't trillions gone missing from the Pentagon budget? Who has all
that money? I think it might be easier to hide immense wealth than you
suggest. Granted, to do so would require extreme political power or approval,
which is why the GP's question about Putin is so insightful.

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pchristensen
Sure, even if you accept that $Ts have gone missing (not sure if I believe
that they're missing, just poorly allocated to overpricing defense
contractors), it would have to go to many, many people. I think it would be
impossible to hide in America. It is a good point about Putin though. He's
probably the only person I can think of in the world who could pull it off.
Still, if the main source of wealth is oil, then it would be hard to hide from
the world market, and essentially useless without including the world oil
market. Same with any other natural resource - how would you hide 600M barrels
of oil ($60B worth at current market price)? Or a mine with that many
diamonds? Or a company with that much revenue?

It still doesn't answer the other question, why hide all that money? If you've
got the billions, why not show them off? Or if you can't enjoy them, why
bother embezzling them?

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moog
Maybe you're right that it would be impossible to hide this in America.

I don't like to get all conspiratorial, but have you read 'Confessions of an
Economic Hit Man'? If half of what Perkins writes is true, then maybe it
wouldn't be so hard. He says that there is a parallel economic system in
operation that most of us don't know about. If you were part of that world,
you probably could flaunt your wealth... you just have to be sure it's hidden
from the population at large.

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pchristensen
Interesting looking book. Still, it sounds like big banks transferring big tax
money to big companies. 3 big means that it can make a lot of people rich and
drive a lot of business, but not necessarily create mega-billionaires.

I mean come on, for $65 billion, you could buy Oracle, Goldman Sachs, Boeing,
or Apple (in 2006).

[http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/18/06f2000_The-
Forbes-2000_...](http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/18/06f2000_The-
Forbes-2000_MktVal.html)

Or try spending it on stuff - the most expensive house is ~$120 million
(Mittal's house next to Buckingham Palace in London). The biggest yacht is
~$100 million. The entire "World" development in Dubai
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_>(archipelago) ) cost $14B, and it's
selling to some of the richest people in the world. You could buy every
superlative in the world and still have most of your money leftover. When you
get to that much money, the only thing you can't buy is bragging rights over
the people above you on the Forbes list.

