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It's not bad to look at the other side of the pond for perspective. The Forbes 400, a snapshot of estimated wealth as of 29 August 2008 in the US, had been released. This is a list of the 400 most wealthiest Americans. But before we check the list, let's pause to reflect on the enormity of that wealth. The richest Pinoy businessman is estimated at $2.6 Billion in 2007. Numero Uno in the Forbes 400 is Bill Gates, worth $57 Billion. If we peg the conversion rate at P47 to a dollar, that amounts to -- wait, my calculator just returned an error message. Ah, there you go, that's equivalent to P2,679,000,000,000 or simply 2.679 Trillion Pesos (I hope I got that right), twice the entire Philippine government's budget for 2007 (P1.1 Trillion) or 2008 (P1.227 Trillion). The top 15 of the Forbes 400, released by Forbes, are: William Gates III ($57 Billion; Microsoft)
Warren Buffett ($50 Billion; Berkshire Hathaway)
Lawrence Ellison ($27 Billion; Oracle)
Jim Walton ($23.4 Billion; Wal-Mart)
S Robson Walton ($23.3 Billion; Wal-Mart)
Alice Walton ($23.2 Billion; Wal-Mart)
Christy Walton & family ($23.2 Billion; Wal-Mart inheritance)
Michael Bloomberg ($20 Billion; Bloomberg)
Charles Koch ($19 Billion; manufacturing, energy)
David Koch ($19 Billion; manufacturing, energy)
Michael Dell ($17.3 Billion; Dell)
Paul Allen ($16 Billion; Microsoft, investments)
Sergey Brin ($15.9 Billion; Google)
Larry Page ($15.8 Billion; Google)
Sheldon Adelson ($15 Billion; casinos, hotels) Of course, it's debatable if money can bring you friends, but would it be much better to have friends AND have the billions? Anyway, stop dreaming and go to work.=)
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