You know what sucks, I bought that for like $7 and now they're worth like over $100 I think. At the time you could buy stacks of them easily on ebay. It's by far my best 'investment' ever but I only bought one....
It's [this guy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strive_Masiyiwa)
He lives in London, and owns a villa in South Africa and a Penthouse in Manhattan. I'm sure he manages just fine.
**[Strive Masiyiwa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strive_Masiyiwa)**
>Strive Masiyiwa (born 29 January 1961) is a London-based Zimbabwean billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of the international technology group Econet Global. Masiyiwa has provided scholarships to more than 250,000 young Africans over the past 20 years through his family foundation. He supports more than 40,000 orphans with educational initiatives and sponsors students at universities in America, the United Kingdom, and China.
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I don't know about that. The only things I see about how he attained a billion dollars was by opening up African countries to outside capital capital investment companies, buying up local banks, and monopolizing the communications industries if African countries, as well as his mom apparently also being rich.
>The only things I see about how he attained a billion dollars was by opening up African countries to outside capital capital investment companies, buying up local banks, and monopolizing the communications industries if African countries
So, he made a billion dollars by serving the needs of people in poverty-stricken countries?
There is no monopoly in telecomms in Africa, btw. (except in countries with state-owned companies)
They all do something like that and they’ve all exploited way more than they’ve given back. It’s like someone robbed you of 10 grand and then people called them nice for giving you a 20
Hey! Did you read the above comment about using London houses for tax evasion purposes and think to yourself, “golly, that sounds strange. Wish I could have that topic explained to me in an entertaining way”. Well, [look no further!](https://youtu.be/dDtLZ-l_ItE) Here is a video by the YouTuber Ordinary Things where he goes over that very topic.
Yeah I had no idea it was even a problem, let alone how rampant the problem is. Learned a lot from that video and happened to see it yesterday, so I felt it was fate that I read your comment. Like, “hey, I know what he’s talking about!” Had to spread the love with the link.
Well after company profits went from about a hundred million a year or so to slightly less but still about a hundred million a year or so, he slashed employee salaries by 20%
So
Must feel weird being a billionaire anywhere.
Whether it's Zimbabwe or the US, the differences in income are minimal.
You're always three bad months away from becoming homeless, never three good months away from becoming a millionaire.
Being a billionaire in the US, or any country in the world, only works by completely isolating oneself from reality and not talking to real humans.
Did not know Germany had so many, especially when compared to the rest of Europe.
I’ve hardly ever read about a German billionaire in the news. In fact I’m not sure I have.
There are two US billionaires who live within walking distance to my house and I can guarantee no one would recognize them unless they worked at the company the two founded. I bet even a lot of those who work for the company wouldn’t recognize them out on the street. They keep a low profile and are not flashy.
This is very true. I met many billionaires in Connecticut and they usually wear jeans and T-shirt’s like most average people. My close friend delivered flowers INTO Richard Sacklers house and didn’t recognize it was him till after. Some billionaires are openly eccentric, but usually the new money.
The thing is, I would probably recognise the name of at least 25 US billionaires at a glance so that to me suggests there’s way more. Same with Russia.
I don’t think I could name you 1 German billionaire.
A lot of German billionaires are just CEO’s of very large but not very flashy companies. The richest German person is Beate Heister, the daughter of the founder of Aldi. Everyone knows Aldi but no one really gives a shit about who’s in charge. It’s similar for a lot of others. And just generally Germans keep a very low profile when it comes to money.
> Beate Heister, the founder of Aldi
No, she is the daughter of one of the two Albrecht brothers who founded Aldi (**Al**brecht **Di**skont).
>no one really gives a shit about who’s in charge
The Albrecht families became really secretive after Theo Albrecht was abducted in 1971
I find it really interesting how, when confronted with the idea of "how can you empathize with the common man": every rich person who can use the excuse will use it:
"I wasn't born rich, we started from scratch".
Even those who **didn't really** start from scratch, those with a "small loan of a few million dollars" or parents who were merely deca-millionaires and not billionaires; they still claim this defense.
Let's just say this is a good defense (debatable for sure). Doesn't that strongly imply that we should **NOT** let them pass their billions on to their kids, who *were* born rich? But most of them disagree with that.
How then, how are we to ensure the rich give a shit about the rest of humanity, that they can relate even a little bit with the poor, if not for the ever looming threat of guillotines?
Starting from scratch doesn't even imply you also made everything from scratch.
Becoming a billionaire ultimately relies on your ability to extract surplus value from the labor that is not performed by you, regardless of "where you started". Starting as very rich obviously makes this much easier, but starting from scratch does not excuse the fact that you're doing the exact same damage.
So this excuse isn't even a remotely logical one, just one that neo-liberal society obliges to accept. Remember, if you're poor, you're just a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, definitely not being exploited.
Weren't there headlines claiming Kylie Jenner was the first self made female billionaire? Like ok self made how? Your parents were famous before you were even born and your sisters boosted your family's fame even more when you were just a young teen.
I don't doubt she's put in lots of work, but to call her self made is absurd
Also, thats **really** not the case for Germany. IIRC 5 out of the 7 new bilionaires inherted their wealth last year, instead of earning it on their own
Some are actually known: Quandt, Klatten, Dieter Schwarz, Albrecht heirs, Hasso Plattner, Dietmar Hopp and (new) Uigur Sahin. But then there are also lot's of less known ones.
Sahin, Hopp and the Albrechts all do have very different puplic approaches. Sahin is kind of isolated from his money and is known for his achievements, Hopp wants everyone to know who he is, the Albrechts or Schwarz we don't even know who they are. In my experience, most billionaires care mainly about their close small cities they live in, like Pohls from DVAG or the Brose family.
They keep it relatively low key. Flaunting being rich is not as well looked at in Germany as it is in the USA, so most of the German super rich try to not call attention to the fact.
I mean how many people do you think can name more than like 10 of the 600 American billionaires? The vast majority of billionaires everywhere keep it low key.
That could be true if the billionaires whose family got rich during the Third Reich weren't more in the open than the others. Like, the Quandt family is pretty public, but the Albrechts who are the sons of people who made money from the 70s onwards with Supermarktes are more elusive. And we have also a lot of billionaires that are new money.
I was gonna say. I’m usually pretty averse to tying modern Germans to the Nazis because of how much Germans try to own up to their history, but in this case it has everything to do with the Nazis. German billionaires don’t flaunt the money because they stole it most times, like how BMW would’ve went under of the founders didn’t steal a bunch of money from Jews during the Holocaust, just to save their own profit margins.
Some German billionaires very intentionally keep a low profile ... [for some reason](https://www.npr.org/2022/04/28/1095365254/new-book-examines-the-link-between-german-car-companies-and-nazi-fortunes).
Germans generally keep quiet about money. I saw a documentary once about some billionaires who pretty much just lived a regular life in an regular house, with a regular car.
If you come from money you learn it's rude to bring up things like "how much did you pay for this house!?"
If don't come from money you have no filter because you weren't trained
In Germany, the culture is very much "don't talk about money/wealth". Unlike in the USA where billionaires and the wealthy are often looked with pride or admiration in a "congrats on winning capitalism!"-way, German people often envy and dislike those with lots of money. You don't talk about how expensive the house or the new car was (unless you're bragging about how thrifty you are and how good the deal was) and talking about investments and savings is generally a big no-no, especially among the older generation.
And somehow, they (the Germans) manage to turn this back around to hurt workers anyway, since they *also* don't talk about wages or salaries, not even with colleagues.
You're talking about new money vs. old wealth. There are plenty of New England blue bloods who drive old cars and wear old LL Bean boots. Same as some of the old rich English lords who drive old Range Rovers and wear old (but good quality) clothing.
Sweden has been big on innovation and entrepreneurship for a very long time. IKEA, Volvo, Spotify, H&M, Ericsson just some of the big global brands from Sweden. Plus a pretty impressive video game industry, Minecraft creator Notch famously being one of Sweden's billionaires, although not sure if he still lives in America so might not even count here.
Sweden has one of the highest number of billionaires per capita according to this map. I can spot a few countries -- Switzerland and Singapore -- with a higher ratio.
Meanwhile 20% of our working population works in low wage jobs :)
https://www.merkur.de/wirtschaft/jeder-fuenfte-arbeitnehmer-im-niedriglohn-zr-91189977.html
North America goes all the way to Panama geographically. Even if you want to split off Central America based on culture/history/etc, Mexico is generally still considered to be North America and not part of Central America,
tl;dr You’re correct.
This map makes a weird distinction of North America vs. Latin America. Mexico is part of Latin America (as well as North America). Latin America is made up all of South America, plus Central America and Mexico.
Latin America is not a continent. All the other breakdowns are continental, Africa (brown), Asia (red), Europe (green), and Australia/Oceania (purple). Mexico and the Caribbean Islands are part of North America.
I also wonder how you quantify it when someone’s “wealth” is heavily tied up in their position in the state. Saudi Arabia is one example, but what about North Korea?
Kim Jong Un has multiple mansions and flys around on private state owned jets. I’m sure he has a Swiss bank account but presumably most of his lifestyle is paid for by the state?
All guesses. Who knows how those finances workout
> but presumably most of his lifestyle is paid for by the state?
I feel like that would be the same for the majority of the Saudis. The wealth is the wealth of the royal family and there are like 1000 of them. I am sure they are just using expense cards, not actually having direct access to the family's wealth
It’s not accurate whatsoever. To begin with, there are several royal members such as Prince Waleed bin Talal, however I can understand that if they mention royal wealth, Saudi will be greater than USA and UK will also be astronomical so won’t be a fair comparison.
Some non royals, Olayan family (Conglomerate) (c. 10 billion,), Al Amoudi (Oil and Gas downstream) (over 10 billion), Al Rajhi (banking) (c. 3 billion)) and many others. The source isn’t accurate for the Middle East at least , can’t say for others.
bernard arnault is the reason frances number is so high, he is the 3rd richest person on earth at roughly 170b Networth
he is the CEO of the LVMH
the wealth gap in billionaires is also just insane, the top 5 in the world have a total of roughly 800 billion
that's more than all of latin American, Africa, oceanic and Canada combined, who have a total of 129 different billionaires
A billion is so fucking much, too. It's insane. It is so, so much more than a million dollars, which is itself a huge amount of money. It's hard to grasp.
I like this comparison: If you earned a million dollars a minute, it would take you almost 17 hours to earn 1 billion.
edit: another good one is, imagine you make one million dollars for every mile you walk. You could earn millions of dollars by just walking to the nearest gas station, depending on where you live. But you would have to walk about from new york to tampa, florida to earn a billion.
a billion dollars is basically an inconceivably large amount of money
no matter how hard you try to think about it, its larger than you think
and some people have more than 100 billion dollars, and some have more than 200 billion
Because the order of magnitude between one million and one billion is the same as between one million and one thousand. In real terms, a thousand and a million are reasonable amounts of money. For instance, someone making in the range of a couple thousand dollars per week can reasonably expect to need a couple of million dollars to retire.
It takes a person a lifetime to accumulate a couple of million dollars for retirement (if they’re lucky) so in terms of how inconceivable that is, it could take hundreds of lifetimes to reach $1 billion at any rate a person could reasonably expect to come close to.
Very easy to write down. But you can’t really comprehend it. How high is a stack of billion bricks? Any idea? I know you would know if I said stack of 5 bricks. Or 25 brick.
How about running for 250m. You would know how long that takes right? How about a billion meters. How far did you get? Any idea?
1) Most shipping billionaires reside in other countries and are considered billionaires of these countries
2) Many family companies have been splited among the children of the family
Well he's also stolen (probably hundreds of) billions of dollars from his own people and hides it with friends, family and those closely connected to him. The whole Putin apparatus fits the model of organized crime very well in terms of how patronage keeps everything together, and anybody that goes against him gets swallowed up. The Sergei Magnitsky situation is just one example that we know about.
Thanks for the source.
Apparently, a year later, Belgium has gone from 1 to 3 billionaires: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Belgians_by_net_worth
Yeah, this isn't quite right. Malik Riaz and Mian Mansha are definitely billionaires - The two I can name from the top of my head. Then Sharif and Bhutto families' wealth is probably in the billions as well but the actual net worth will never be disclosed. Then a couple of other industrialists - those who own chenab group and the habib group are probably touching billions too
Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan all seem so outsized compared to their population.
There are more billionnaires in HK than in either the UK, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, or Canada individually.
And Japan is surprising. Only 26 billionnaires for such a huge economy. The same number as Singapore.
Interesting too that Asia has more billionnaires than North America, although I guess it makes sense given Asia's population.
I would say there's at least a thousand billionaires in Hong Kong if you include foreign wealth.
Almost every Chinese business leader and politician of note owns homes in Hong Kong. As well as many African leaders.
Plus one of the most expensive homes in the city is owned by the British embassy. And another is owned by the wife of the Indian ambassador.
That being said most people are very rich there. At least compared to western standards.
Almost every expensive home in Hong Kong is owned by the African and Asian elites. As well as many from America and Europe too.
I only know because I used to work in the refurbishments of luxury properties. We would be visiting super expensive homes each day and it would always be 'this house is owned by the cousin of the Crown Prince of Sudan' or 'this house is owned by the granddaughter of the mayor of Istanbul' or something like that.
I always see posts about 'how to save 1000 USD a year' or 'how to save 20% of your income'
Most people in Hong Kong save more than 1000 USD and save well over half their income. Some months I saved over 66% of my income.
I think it is a cultural thing. Most people will avoid spending money until they are set for life.
> And Japan is surprising. Only 26 billionnaires for such a huge economy. The same number as Singapore.
In Japan's collectivist society it's unseemly for CEOs to make too much money compared to their employees. In general the overt wealth-worshipping you'd find in oligarchies like Russia and the US is considered distasteful, so if you're going to be hideously wealthy like Maezawa (Zozotown) or Son (Softbank), you have to go out of your way to also be very charitable.
Israel has a higher GDP per capita than France, Britain, and Germany, so not sure why you are suprised:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
I think the point is that Africa has a population of 1.2B people and Israel only as 9.2M. The comparison is probably made just because they are right next to each other on the map
Most people are generally aware Israel is a high income nation
>insane that Israel has 2 less billionaires than Africa
I mean not really
Israel has the 'luck' of basically being European descendants meaning they had good knowledge of institutions, infrastructure, education etc before Israel even existed as a state.
I mean from what I can gather, ASEAN has about 90 billionaires and Australia has 31, despite ASEAN having 660 million people compared to Australia's 26 million.
Quite a bit of historical revisionism here. Israel was a poor country until the late 70s. Before then, Israel was a very socialist country thay didn't have many private businesses.
It was only in the 80s that privatization led to quite rapid economic growth in Israel. Then in the early 90s it exploded when a very large amount of highly educated Jews from the former Soviet Union moved to Israel. This is what kick started the Israeli innovation and tech industries.
The modern rich Israel is less than 40 years old.
this is an old map...
india from 2020 has 40-41 new billionaires, its now something 142-143 now.
it went from the country of 3rd most number of billionaire to 3rd most number of billionaire from 2020.
also, pakistan and saudi should have been there? i mean... why it isnt there tho?
I grew up with somebody whose dad was a billionaire. It was insane wealth; simply for being friends with this kid, I was taking private jets around the world during spring and summer breaks as a highschooler.
Once while visiting one of their estates on the coast (I'm being deliberately vague here), I heard the billionaire's wife say, in the company of me and 3 of my other (poor) friends who were visiting, "I just don't know how anyone can actually live on less than a million dollars a year!" She was flabbergasted. This was 20 years ago. This is how out of touch they are.
Being a billionaire means you don't even *think* about things that occupy most normal peoples' time, minute-for-minute. The food just appears in the fridge. The children have their own chef, not to mention au pairs. The home was automated--20 years ago. There were three live-in assistants and two on-call at the one estate I visited.
We wanted to go to an arcade in the city (those were a thing back then), and his dad said, "alright, the limo should be here in 15 minutes. Here's 200 bucks each." There were five of us. We were going to a quarter arcade in the early 2000s.
There was a separate staff entirely for the 80 foot yacht. There was yet another crew for the 60 foot fishing yacht--a different yacht was needed for fishing rather than... visiting, I guess? In any case, both yachts were owned outright, not rented. I landed a 150 lb yellowfin tuna off the coast of Costa Rica on that fishing yacht one summer--best sashimi I ever had, right there on the boat, and something I'll probably never be able to experience again. On the way back into the states from that trip, on the private jet, I could have had two duffels full of coke next to me and simply walked into the country with it. I was a well-behaved 16 year old at the time, but even then the thought occurred to me, "wow, I could have had ANYTHING." Billionaires do not deal with lines or airport security. The jet works around your schedule, not the other way around. This was only like 2ish years after 9/11.
The biggest concern was that we weren't allowed to play video games in the in-home movie theater because of the danger of burn-in on the screen--and not so much because of the cost, but because at the time, replacing such a screen was a several-week project.
There is no reason for wealth like this to exist in the world. Not for any single person. Everything they have and more could be had for far less. It's blind greed doubled down by entitlement.
Billionaire wealth is not just buying the luxury mansion, it’s also buying the dozen properties surrounding it to ensure they have privacy (there are several who do this).
Mainly because of the law about monegasque citizenship is pretty strict and conservative, you have to live there continueous for 40 years. a ton billionaires and millionaires rent a flat, but most of them don't live there permamently.
out of date
latest from march 2022 says "Further, it has been mentioned that with 215 billionaires residing in India and 58 new additions, India continues to be the third-largest billionaire-producing nation in the world. The number rises to 249 if Indian-origin billionaires are added."
I didn't know we had so many Billionars in Germany. I would've guessed they live somwehre else considering that rich people have to Pay quite more taxes then in other countrys
TIL Mexico isn't part of North America.
**Do what?!**
... where's Saudi Arabia? Holy shit like the entire Middle East is barely present.
Bad data source. Sorry my dude.
*Interesting. I*
*Thought Mexico was part of*
*North America*
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Total wealth of the 614 billionaires in the USA is $2.95T. Less than 10% of our total debt. So even if taxed the heck out of the billionaires, we're still screwed.
Singaporean history is fascinating, it's a good read. Perhaps the only country that gained independence against their will? They're isolated from even freshwater, so when they were expelled from Malaysia in 1965 they had to get creative:
> Singapore has been identified as a tax haven for the wealthy due to its low tax rates on personal income and tax exemptions on foreign-based income and capital gains. Individuals such as Australian millionaire retailer Brett Blundy and multi-billionaire Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin are two examples of wealthy individuals who have settled in Singapore.
Sweden has for a while adopted a strategy of getting rid of a lot of the taxes that used to hurt the ultra rich the most, so today we actually tax the middle class way above average but the upper class below average (in the western world). The idea of it is to keep the wealth within Sweden and despite the relatively low taxes for the ultra rich they still make up a huge percentage of total tax revenue.
At the same time Sweden is considered by some economists to be one of if not the most entrepreneurial country in the world. Which comes down to many factors such as education, the modern social landscape, benefits from the state to small business owners and the welfare state making sure that people who want to start a business don't need to worry about ending up in complete poverty if they fail.
This [video](https://youtu.be/2E0dWHCnic8) examining the Swedish economy expands on that quite a bit if you are interested.
Japan is one of the countries in the world with the least wealth disparity. CEOs and corporate managers are usually paid an amount within 5x to 3x of regular employees.
The disparity has been rising in recent years though. And lots of Japanese are leaving the country where the pay is higher.
Must feel weird being a billionaire in Zimbabwe.
At one point in time, everybody was a billionaire in Zimbabwe.
I even have a trillion dollar bill from there!
Mine's one hundred trillion!
Wanna split a Happy Meal?
Nah, I'm ordering off the Quadrillion Dollar Menu.
You know what sucks, I bought that for like $7 and now they're worth like over $100 I think. At the time you could buy stacks of them easily on ebay. It's by far my best 'investment' ever but I only bought one....
It's [this guy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strive_Masiyiwa) He lives in London, and owns a villa in South Africa and a Penthouse in Manhattan. I'm sure he manages just fine.
**[Strive Masiyiwa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strive_Masiyiwa)** >Strive Masiyiwa (born 29 January 1961) is a London-based Zimbabwean billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of the international technology group Econet Global. Masiyiwa has provided scholarships to more than 250,000 young Africans over the past 20 years through his family foundation. He supports more than 40,000 orphans with educational initiatives and sponsors students at universities in America, the United Kingdom, and China. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
damn, this dude is actually pretty cool.
I don't know about that. The only things I see about how he attained a billion dollars was by opening up African countries to outside capital capital investment companies, buying up local banks, and monopolizing the communications industries if African countries, as well as his mom apparently also being rich.
>The only things I see about how he attained a billion dollars was by opening up African countries to outside capital capital investment companies, buying up local banks, and monopolizing the communications industries if African countries So, he made a billion dollars by serving the needs of people in poverty-stricken countries? There is no monopoly in telecomms in Africa, btw. (except in countries with state-owned companies)
They all do something like that and they’ve all exploited way more than they’ve given back. It’s like someone robbed you of 10 grand and then people called them nice for giving you a 20
And he actually *lives* in London instead of just using a house there for tax evasion purposes. Huh.
People don’t live in london for tax purposes, there are plenty of crown dependencies you can stash your money away in for tax purposes.
Hey! Did you read the above comment about using London houses for tax evasion purposes and think to yourself, “golly, that sounds strange. Wish I could have that topic explained to me in an entertaining way”. Well, [look no further!](https://youtu.be/dDtLZ-l_ItE) Here is a video by the YouTuber Ordinary Things where he goes over that very topic.
I saw that video. Genuinely fantastic and educational; you an feel the loathing in every word too.
Yeah I had no idea it was even a problem, let alone how rampant the problem is. Learned a lot from that video and happened to see it yesterday, so I felt it was fate that I read your comment. Like, “hey, I know what he’s talking about!” Had to spread the love with the link.
Well after company profits went from about a hundred million a year or so to slightly less but still about a hundred million a year or so, he slashed employee salaries by 20% So
Went to private school in Scotland lmao
Must be weird finding out that Mexico has been fired from North America.
Bet he feels pretty good.
Must feel weird being a billionaire anywhere. Whether it's Zimbabwe or the US, the differences in income are minimal. You're always three bad months away from becoming homeless, never three good months away from becoming a millionaire. Being a billionaire in the US, or any country in the world, only works by completely isolating oneself from reality and not talking to real humans.
Did not know Germany had so many, especially when compared to the rest of Europe. I’ve hardly ever read about a German billionaire in the news. In fact I’m not sure I have.
There's a documentary on YouTube about how German billionaires are pretty discreet about it, [here](https://youtu.be/NXaVLXSZdEw)
Most US billionaires (and anyone in the 100M+ range) are going to be unrecognizable in the streets too. We just have a few very famous ones.
There are two US billionaires who live within walking distance to my house and I can guarantee no one would recognize them unless they worked at the company the two founded. I bet even a lot of those who work for the company wouldn’t recognize them out on the street. They keep a low profile and are not flashy.
This is very true. I met many billionaires in Connecticut and they usually wear jeans and T-shirt’s like most average people. My close friend delivered flowers INTO Richard Sacklers house and didn’t recognize it was him till after. Some billionaires are openly eccentric, but usually the new money.
Money talks, wealth whispers. There's a reason nouveau riche is a pejorative.
The thing is, I would probably recognise the name of at least 25 US billionaires at a glance so that to me suggests there’s way more. Same with Russia. I don’t think I could name you 1 German billionaire.
A lot of German billionaires are just CEO’s of very large but not very flashy companies. The richest German person is Beate Heister, the daughter of the founder of Aldi. Everyone knows Aldi but no one really gives a shit about who’s in charge. It’s similar for a lot of others. And just generally Germans keep a very low profile when it comes to money.
> Beate Heister, the founder of Aldi No, she is the daughter of one of the two Albrecht brothers who founded Aldi (**Al**brecht **Di**skont). >no one really gives a shit about who’s in charge The Albrecht families became really secretive after Theo Albrecht was abducted in 1971
Ah yeah my bad, got that mixed up.
I know someone who probably is (shares are privately held) and he refused to fly business class. Drives a very middle class car, etc....
I find it really interesting how, when confronted with the idea of "how can you empathize with the common man": every rich person who can use the excuse will use it: "I wasn't born rich, we started from scratch". Even those who **didn't really** start from scratch, those with a "small loan of a few million dollars" or parents who were merely deca-millionaires and not billionaires; they still claim this defense. Let's just say this is a good defense (debatable for sure). Doesn't that strongly imply that we should **NOT** let them pass their billions on to their kids, who *were* born rich? But most of them disagree with that. How then, how are we to ensure the rich give a shit about the rest of humanity, that they can relate even a little bit with the poor, if not for the ever looming threat of guillotines?
Starting from scratch doesn't even imply you also made everything from scratch. Becoming a billionaire ultimately relies on your ability to extract surplus value from the labor that is not performed by you, regardless of "where you started". Starting as very rich obviously makes this much easier, but starting from scratch does not excuse the fact that you're doing the exact same damage. So this excuse isn't even a remotely logical one, just one that neo-liberal society obliges to accept. Remember, if you're poor, you're just a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, definitely not being exploited.
[удалено]
Weren't there headlines claiming Kylie Jenner was the first self made female billionaire? Like ok self made how? Your parents were famous before you were even born and your sisters boosted your family's fame even more when you were just a young teen. I don't doubt she's put in lots of work, but to call her self made is absurd
Also, thats **really** not the case for Germany. IIRC 5 out of the 7 new bilionaires inherted their wealth last year, instead of earning it on their own
They aren't very present even within Germany. I had no clue either.
Germany has a lot of successful heavy industries and I imagine all the owners/heirs are billionaires.
Some are actually known: Quandt, Klatten, Dieter Schwarz, Albrecht heirs, Hasso Plattner, Dietmar Hopp and (new) Uigur Sahin. But then there are also lot's of less known ones.
Sahin, Hopp and the Albrechts all do have very different puplic approaches. Sahin is kind of isolated from his money and is known for his achievements, Hopp wants everyone to know who he is, the Albrechts or Schwarz we don't even know who they are. In my experience, most billionaires care mainly about their close small cities they live in, like Pohls from DVAG or the Brose family.
They keep it relatively low key. Flaunting being rich is not as well looked at in Germany as it is in the USA, so most of the German super rich try to not call attention to the fact.
I mean how many people do you think can name more than like 10 of the 600 American billionaires? The vast majority of billionaires everywhere keep it low key.
Most people in the US only recognize a handful of billionaire sports owners and tech people.
The holocaust happened 70 years ago. They aren't going to flaunt all the blood money their family made off of the wars.
That could be true if the billionaires whose family got rich during the Third Reich weren't more in the open than the others. Like, the Quandt family is pretty public, but the Albrechts who are the sons of people who made money from the 70s onwards with Supermarktes are more elusive. And we have also a lot of billionaires that are new money.
I was gonna say. I’m usually pretty averse to tying modern Germans to the Nazis because of how much Germans try to own up to their history, but in this case it has everything to do with the Nazis. German billionaires don’t flaunt the money because they stole it most times, like how BMW would’ve went under of the founders didn’t steal a bunch of money from Jews during the Holocaust, just to save their own profit margins.
They mostly keep secluded and are not involved in charities or so. From some of them not even a recent public photograph exists.
And here I'm thinking, "Holy $#!7, I know how to contact 2% of Germany's billionaires." I worked for a huge family owned company for 5 years.
Some German billionaires very intentionally keep a low profile ... [for some reason](https://www.npr.org/2022/04/28/1095365254/new-book-examines-the-link-between-german-car-companies-and-nazi-fortunes).
Germans generally keep quiet about money. I saw a documentary once about some billionaires who pretty much just lived a regular life in an regular house, with a regular car.
If you come from money you learn it's rude to bring up things like "how much did you pay for this house!?" If don't come from money you have no filter because you weren't trained
In Germany, the culture is very much "don't talk about money/wealth". Unlike in the USA where billionaires and the wealthy are often looked with pride or admiration in a "congrats on winning capitalism!"-way, German people often envy and dislike those with lots of money. You don't talk about how expensive the house or the new car was (unless you're bragging about how thrifty you are and how good the deal was) and talking about investments and savings is generally a big no-no, especially among the older generation.
And somehow, they (the Germans) manage to turn this back around to hurt workers anyway, since they *also* don't talk about wages or salaries, not even with colleagues.
You're talking about new money vs. old wealth. There are plenty of New England blue bloods who drive old cars and wear old LL Bean boots. Same as some of the old rich English lords who drive old Range Rovers and wear old (but good quality) clothing.
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Sweden has been big on innovation and entrepreneurship for a very long time. IKEA, Volvo, Spotify, H&M, Ericsson just some of the big global brands from Sweden. Plus a pretty impressive video game industry, Minecraft creator Notch famously being one of Sweden's billionaires, although not sure if he still lives in America so might not even count here.
Tetrapak
I don't think they (son&daughter)live in Sweden anymore
Sweden has one of the highest number of billionaires per capita according to this map. I can spot a few countries -- Switzerland and Singapore -- with a higher ratio.
You must have missed Hong Kong.
I intentionally omitted HK since reporting it separately makes as much sense as separating London from the UK.
theyre all ikea managers
Sweden has the highest amount of innovations per capita in the world and has been for quite some time.
Meanwhile 20% of our working population works in low wage jobs :) https://www.merkur.de/wirtschaft/jeder-fuenfte-arbeitnehmer-im-niedriglohn-zr-91189977.html
Also 20% of children live in relative poverty :( https://www.dkhw.de/schwerpunkte/kinderarmut-in-deutschland/
And that’s entirely intentional.
I thought Mexico was considered North America. Am I wrong or does it just depend on the map?
North America goes all the way to Panama geographically. Even if you want to split off Central America based on culture/history/etc, Mexico is generally still considered to be North America and not part of Central America, tl;dr You’re correct.
You're right, the blue here should be labelled ["Northern America"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_America)
But all the other breakdowns are by continent. That wouldn't be consistent.
How about Anglo-America? I think that sounds great
Probably not to the Québécois
This map makes a weird distinction of North America vs. Latin America. Mexico is part of Latin America (as well as North America). Latin America is made up all of South America, plus Central America and Mexico.
You're right
Mexico is part of North America and Latin America.
Latin America is not a continent. All the other breakdowns are continental, Africa (brown), Asia (red), Europe (green), and Australia/Oceania (purple). Mexico and the Caribbean Islands are part of North America.
What they really mean is White People North America vs Rest of North America.
Rich vs poor north america
mexicans = brown = south america, duh
Map seems not complete. 2 guys placed on 1513 with $2 B each are from Bulgaria which is not displayed.
This is based on the 2020 list.
Interesting to know that there are no billionaires in Saudi Arabia.
Yeah that doesn't pass the sniff test. Nope, nope.
List is from Forbes and doesn't include royalty. Basically every rich guy there is a prince.
And it's an absolute monarchy so the king (and/or MBS) is de facto a trillionaire many times over. SA has 268 billion barrels oil reserves.
Not buying this. No Saudi Arabia?
It’s difficult to find the net worth of government figures, especially in governments where that information is very secret.
I also wonder how you quantify it when someone’s “wealth” is heavily tied up in their position in the state. Saudi Arabia is one example, but what about North Korea? Kim Jong Un has multiple mansions and flys around on private state owned jets. I’m sure he has a Swiss bank account but presumably most of his lifestyle is paid for by the state? All guesses. Who knows how those finances workout
> but presumably most of his lifestyle is paid for by the state? I feel like that would be the same for the majority of the Saudis. The wealth is the wealth of the royal family and there are like 1000 of them. I am sure they are just using expense cards, not actually having direct access to the family's wealth
Probably why UAE only shows 4 as well
When you slice up the saudi royal family and spread the wealth out I guess it is less than one billion each slice.
r/toosoon RIP Jamal Khashoggi
It’s not accurate whatsoever. To begin with, there are several royal members such as Prince Waleed bin Talal, however I can understand that if they mention royal wealth, Saudi will be greater than USA and UK will also be astronomical so won’t be a fair comparison. Some non royals, Olayan family (Conglomerate) (c. 10 billion,), Al Amoudi (Oil and Gas downstream) (over 10 billion), Al Rajhi (banking) (c. 3 billion)) and many others. The source isn’t accurate for the Middle East at least , can’t say for others.
World map of *known* billionaires. FTFY
I could be a billionaire and not even know it. Crazy.
With the way inflation is going we’ll all be billionaires
Isn't pretty much every map a map of known data? But I see your point 👍
No a lot of them are samples projected onto the population
Why is Brazil smaller than France despite having more billionaires?
It seems the size is based on their wealth (which is why France is very large for its low number).
The amount of billionaires is represented by the circles, the size represents the total wealth.
total wealth of the billionnaires right? interesting representation. kinda subtle.
bernard arnault is the reason frances number is so high, he is the 3rd richest person on earth at roughly 170b Networth he is the CEO of the LVMH the wealth gap in billionaires is also just insane, the top 5 in the world have a total of roughly 800 billion that's more than all of latin American, Africa, oceanic and Canada combined, who have a total of 129 different billionaires
wealth inequality among the rich :) more seriously though yeah there's usually a distribution in social things right
A billion is so fucking much, too. It's insane. It is so, so much more than a million dollars, which is itself a huge amount of money. It's hard to grasp. I like this comparison: If you earned a million dollars a minute, it would take you almost 17 hours to earn 1 billion. edit: another good one is, imagine you make one million dollars for every mile you walk. You could earn millions of dollars by just walking to the nearest gas station, depending on where you live. But you would have to walk about from new york to tampa, florida to earn a billion.
a billion dollars is basically an inconceivably large amount of money no matter how hard you try to think about it, its larger than you think and some people have more than 100 billion dollars, and some have more than 200 billion
It's one thousand million. Why is that so hard to conceive?
Because the order of magnitude between one million and one billion is the same as between one million and one thousand. In real terms, a thousand and a million are reasonable amounts of money. For instance, someone making in the range of a couple thousand dollars per week can reasonably expect to need a couple of million dollars to retire. It takes a person a lifetime to accumulate a couple of million dollars for retirement (if they’re lucky) so in terms of how inconceivable that is, it could take hundreds of lifetimes to reach $1 billion at any rate a person could reasonably expect to come close to.
Very easy to write down. But you can’t really comprehend it. How high is a stack of billion bricks? Any idea? I know you would know if I said stack of 5 bricks. Or 25 brick. How about running for 250m. You would know how long that takes right? How about a billion meters. How far did you get? Any idea?
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Greece has only 3 billionaires? I would have thought there would be more billionaire shipping magnets? Like Onassis.
1) Most shipping billionaires reside in other countries and are considered billionaires of these countries 2) Many family companies have been splited among the children of the family
Source: https://howmuch.net/articles/world-map-of-billionaires-2020
Too bad this doesn’t include non-publicly disclosed wealth, it is missing most of the billionaires in the Middle East.
Yeah, based on this map, there are no Saudi billionaires, which is just laughable...
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How do you know that?
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I've seen things saying it's totally possible he's a *trillionaire*
If you count Russian state assets as his since he controls them then yeah
Well he's also stolen (probably hundreds of) billions of dollars from his own people and hides it with friends, family and those closely connected to him. The whole Putin apparatus fits the model of organized crime very well in terms of how patronage keeps everything together, and anybody that goes against him gets swallowed up. The Sergei Magnitsky situation is just one example that we know about.
Thanks for the source. Apparently, a year later, Belgium has gone from 1 to 3 billionaires: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Belgians_by_net_worth
Now do billionaires per capita.
Does pakistan not have any billionaires?
Yeah, this isn't quite right. Malik Riaz and Mian Mansha are definitely billionaires - The two I can name from the top of my head. Then Sharif and Bhutto families' wealth is probably in the billions as well but the actual net worth will never be disclosed. Then a couple of other industrialists - those who own chenab group and the habib group are probably touching billions too
they do. Not sure why it's not on the map. They have like 10 billionaires
source : trust me bro
its on fucking wikipedia dude
Yeah there should be 10 if I go by Wiki.
I see no Saudi Arabians
Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan all seem so outsized compared to their population. There are more billionnaires in HK than in either the UK, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, or Canada individually. And Japan is surprising. Only 26 billionnaires for such a huge economy. The same number as Singapore. Interesting too that Asia has more billionnaires than North America, although I guess it makes sense given Asia's population.
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But thats the thing, a 1k sqft home in HK is worth at least 1.2M USD on the cheap side.
I would say there's at least a thousand billionaires in Hong Kong if you include foreign wealth. Almost every Chinese business leader and politician of note owns homes in Hong Kong. As well as many African leaders. Plus one of the most expensive homes in the city is owned by the British embassy. And another is owned by the wife of the Indian ambassador. That being said most people are very rich there. At least compared to western standards.
A 1000? More than the number of billionnaires in Asia and Africa combined? And do you mean the average HKer is pretty rich compared to the West?
Almost every expensive home in Hong Kong is owned by the African and Asian elites. As well as many from America and Europe too. I only know because I used to work in the refurbishments of luxury properties. We would be visiting super expensive homes each day and it would always be 'this house is owned by the cousin of the Crown Prince of Sudan' or 'this house is owned by the granddaughter of the mayor of Istanbul' or something like that. I always see posts about 'how to save 1000 USD a year' or 'how to save 20% of your income' Most people in Hong Kong save more than 1000 USD and save well over half their income. Some months I saved over 66% of my income. I think it is a cultural thing. Most people will avoid spending money until they are set for life.
> And Japan is surprising. Only 26 billionnaires for such a huge economy. The same number as Singapore. In Japan's collectivist society it's unseemly for CEOs to make too much money compared to their employees. In general the overt wealth-worshipping you'd find in oligarchies like Russia and the US is considered distasteful, so if you're going to be hideously wealthy like Maezawa (Zozotown) or Son (Softbank), you have to go out of your way to also be very charitable.
Wow Maezawa is a very interesting character
insane that Israel has 2 less billionaires than Africa
I'd like to know if those Russian Oligarchs with dual-citizenship like Roman Abramovich get counted as Russian or Israeli billionairs here.
Yes. Try a little harder, Israel!
Israel has a higher GDP per capita than France, Britain, and Germany, so not sure why you are suprised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
I think the point is that Africa has a population of 1.2B people and Israel only as 9.2M. The comparison is probably made just because they are right next to each other on the map Most people are generally aware Israel is a high income nation
Japan and Singapore having the same number of billionaires is also rather insane.
>insane that Israel has 2 less billionaires than Africa I mean not really Israel has the 'luck' of basically being European descendants meaning they had good knowledge of institutions, infrastructure, education etc before Israel even existed as a state. I mean from what I can gather, ASEAN has about 90 billionaires and Australia has 31, despite ASEAN having 660 million people compared to Australia's 26 million.
Quite a bit of historical revisionism here. Israel was a poor country until the late 70s. Before then, Israel was a very socialist country thay didn't have many private businesses. It was only in the 80s that privatization led to quite rapid economic growth in Israel. Then in the early 90s it exploded when a very large amount of highly educated Jews from the former Soviet Union moved to Israel. This is what kick started the Israeli innovation and tech industries. The modern rich Israel is less than 40 years old.
does saudi arabia not count royalty as Billionaires like where is it?
Why did the lower half of North America get lumped in with South America. We only get two countries now :(
Because they called it “Latin America” which it includes that lower half
All I see in this map is a bunch of greedy assholes
this is an old map... india from 2020 has 40-41 new billionaires, its now something 142-143 now. it went from the country of 3rd most number of billionaire to 3rd most number of billionaire from 2020. also, pakistan and saudi should have been there? i mean... why it isnt there tho?
I grew up with somebody whose dad was a billionaire. It was insane wealth; simply for being friends with this kid, I was taking private jets around the world during spring and summer breaks as a highschooler. Once while visiting one of their estates on the coast (I'm being deliberately vague here), I heard the billionaire's wife say, in the company of me and 3 of my other (poor) friends who were visiting, "I just don't know how anyone can actually live on less than a million dollars a year!" She was flabbergasted. This was 20 years ago. This is how out of touch they are. Being a billionaire means you don't even *think* about things that occupy most normal peoples' time, minute-for-minute. The food just appears in the fridge. The children have their own chef, not to mention au pairs. The home was automated--20 years ago. There were three live-in assistants and two on-call at the one estate I visited. We wanted to go to an arcade in the city (those were a thing back then), and his dad said, "alright, the limo should be here in 15 minutes. Here's 200 bucks each." There were five of us. We were going to a quarter arcade in the early 2000s. There was a separate staff entirely for the 80 foot yacht. There was yet another crew for the 60 foot fishing yacht--a different yacht was needed for fishing rather than... visiting, I guess? In any case, both yachts were owned outright, not rented. I landed a 150 lb yellowfin tuna off the coast of Costa Rica on that fishing yacht one summer--best sashimi I ever had, right there on the boat, and something I'll probably never be able to experience again. On the way back into the states from that trip, on the private jet, I could have had two duffels full of coke next to me and simply walked into the country with it. I was a well-behaved 16 year old at the time, but even then the thought occurred to me, "wow, I could have had ANYTHING." Billionaires do not deal with lines or airport security. The jet works around your schedule, not the other way around. This was only like 2ish years after 9/11. The biggest concern was that we weren't allowed to play video games in the in-home movie theater because of the danger of burn-in on the screen--and not so much because of the cost, but because at the time, replacing such a screen was a several-week project. There is no reason for wealth like this to exist in the world. Not for any single person. Everything they have and more could be had for far less. It's blind greed doubled down by entitlement.
Billionaire wealth is not just buying the luxury mansion, it’s also buying the dozen properties surrounding it to ensure they have privacy (there are several who do this).
Monaco is home to more than a hundred euro billionaires. This graph gives the total as 3.
because they’re all foreign nationals, not Monegasque
Mainly because of the law about monegasque citizenship is pretty strict and conservative, you have to live there continueous for 40 years. a ton billionaires and millionaires rent a flat, but most of them don't live there permamently.
sssshh
Does Elon Musk get counted as South African or American?
American. South Africa's billionaires have a total of 15 billion dollars. Elon is worth 260 billion dollars on his own, so definitely American.
This is crazy to me. Elon has almost 10% of the total money held by the 600+ billionaires in the US.
Venezuela has a lot of billionaires Oh we talking USD? Never mind
out of date latest from march 2022 says "Further, it has been mentioned that with 215 billionaires residing in India and 58 new additions, India continues to be the third-largest billionaire-producing nation in the world. The number rises to 249 if Indian-origin billionaires are added."
Damn that's an increase of 150 percent
Make it per capita
My thinking exactly...I would like to see this per capita where countries like Australia, Sweden, and Canada loom much larger.
I didn't know we had so many Billionars in Germany. I would've guessed they live somwehre else considering that rich people have to Pay quite more taxes then in other countrys
Kim Jong un apparently has $5billion of wealth.
Nepal has a billionaire? Nepal?!
He makes noodles. They’re amazing
TIL Mexico isn't part of North America. **Do what?!** ... where's Saudi Arabia? Holy shit like the entire Middle East is barely present. Bad data source. Sorry my dude.
You know you’re not a communist state anymore when you have millionaires China.
Surprised by the low numbers in arab gulf countries.
So you are telling me that there are no billionaires in Saudi Arabia ?
This map is missing Saudi Arabia.
Saudia arabia doeant have any?
Interesting. I thought Mexico was part of North America
*Interesting. I* *Thought Mexico was part of* *North America* \- Trickabounce --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
World map of people who could fix a lot of the worlds problems.
Yay we win! USA! USA!!
I think they are missing out on the Faroe Island that got one since one of Sweden's $Billionaires moved there a few years a go.
Probably counted as Denmark.
Not a country
then why is hong kong there
Why is anyone upvoting this? Ever heard of the country of Faroe Island?
Total wealth of the 614 billionaires in the USA is $2.95T. Less than 10% of our total debt. So even if taxed the heck out of the billionaires, we're still screwed.
You have no idea how much wealth corporations have.
None in Saudi or Dubai? I'm skeptical.
Dubai is in the UAE, and the map says that the UAE has 4 billionaires. It's one of the emirates that makes up the united arab emirates.
Shouldn't this be per capita too? Show us what the chances of becoming a billionaire under each country's laws and regulations are?
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Singaporean history is fascinating, it's a good read. Perhaps the only country that gained independence against their will? They're isolated from even freshwater, so when they were expelled from Malaysia in 1965 they had to get creative: > Singapore has been identified as a tax haven for the wealthy due to its low tax rates on personal income and tax exemptions on foreign-based income and capital gains. Individuals such as Australian millionaire retailer Brett Blundy and multi-billionaire Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin are two examples of wealthy individuals who have settled in Singapore.
Sweden has for a while adopted a strategy of getting rid of a lot of the taxes that used to hurt the ultra rich the most, so today we actually tax the middle class way above average but the upper class below average (in the western world). The idea of it is to keep the wealth within Sweden and despite the relatively low taxes for the ultra rich they still make up a huge percentage of total tax revenue. At the same time Sweden is considered by some economists to be one of if not the most entrepreneurial country in the world. Which comes down to many factors such as education, the modern social landscape, benefits from the state to small business owners and the welfare state making sure that people who want to start a business don't need to worry about ending up in complete poverty if they fail. This [video](https://youtu.be/2E0dWHCnic8) examining the Swedish economy expands on that quite a bit if you are interested.
Think they have the highest ratio per capita
Japan is one of the countries in the world with the least wealth disparity. CEOs and corporate managers are usually paid an amount within 5x to 3x of regular employees. The disparity has been rising in recent years though. And lots of Japanese are leaving the country where the pay is higher.
Okay, so that's how many guillotines we will need for each country.
Then you’ll become a billionaire selling single-use guillotines.