If you’re an aspiring billionaire (I mean, aren’t we all?), I’m sure you’re obsessing over Forbes’ list of billionaires, studying it meticulously and figuring out how you can make the cut. If you’re a woman, your role models are somewhat limited as there are only about 100 women on the list, out of over 1,200.
But there are some cool findings nonetheless…
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One woman managed to crack the top 10: Christy Walton, of what we’ll call the Walmart dynasty. (Fellow Walmart royalty Alice Walton isn’t far behind her at #21.)
Two Indian women made the list: Savitri Jindal in the steel industry and Indu Jain, who’s in media.
There are six 20-somethings on the list, including Yang Huiyan from China, whose fortune comes from real estate.
Oprah’s still on the list (duh), tied at 420 with some other folks worth $2.7 billion. They list “television” as the source, reminding us that she is not, in fact, the queen of the world.
I’m not sure I really learned anything from the list other than find a Walton heir to the Walmart dynasty. Well, that, and the realization that I’ve never ever aspired to be a billionaire. (Shocker, right?)
There’s probably a lot of sexism in composing the list. Melinda Gates is certainly a billionaire, but her name isn’t anywhere.
Seems like we can close that budget gap with a minor tax hike on just a very few.
In the spirit of the “get a job” mentality coming from the conservative right, I think it would be VERY telling to count how many of these had inherited more than half of of their money during their lifetime.
I’ve never aspired to be a billionaire either. I would be happy with an annual income of about $1 million a year (at the current value of the dollar): my family and I recently took an expensive 10 day trip, so if I multiply the cost of the trip by 36.5 and then by 2 (to account for taxes), I figure we could live like we did on that trip (in a clean room with maid service and very nice breakfasts in the hotel) on well under $1 million a year, which means we would be putting money away for retirement, for buying a nice home, etc. on a $1 million / year.
So what does one need a billion dollars for? How is it beneficial for society to have a few billionaires and a lot of people starving? And does asking these questions make me a commie pinko radical or something?
@ DAS
You’ll “settle” for a million dollars a year and people hired to serve you. Mmm, no, your not a radical commie Pinko. (Maybe only to Glenn Beck.)
DAS
Allowing some people to become billionaires is just a side effect of having the level of economic freedom that we have. Even if we have too much economic freedom currently, resulting in too many billionaires, completely eliminating them is unworkable. To make it completely impossible to become a billionaire society would have to tax some earners marginal dollar at one hundred percent, with attendant perverse and unintended consequences.
Confiscatory inheritance taxes, which I would define as anything over 70 percent of an estate of any size, would be an enforcement nightmare and drive wealth overseas. Thirty percent of untold billions could still be a huge fortune.
I eyeballed the American list, since most are famous, and clicked the bios of those who are not.
6 slots on the top 10 are taken up by Waltons and Kochs so the Lucky Sperm Club has an impressive showing here. The next 10 appear all self made though. They list Anne Cox Chambers as partially inherited but she inherited from her husband, not parents, so i didn’t count her, good feminist am I. Cookie, please. So…LSC 6, J.Galt 14 after 20.
The next 10 you have 3 Mars Candy people and a Fidelity heir so its a clean 10 to 20 after 30 rounds for Galt.
Galt makes an 8-2 run in the next 10 rounds followed by a 7-3 run after that to finish off the Lucky Sperms after 50.
I don’t recognize the next 10 names except for Ralph Lauren and David Geffen so those people can’t too important. After 50 rounds, the final tally:
J.Galt: 35
LSC: 15
70% to 30%
I’m holding out for trillionaire.