Who has the wealth ?

Warren Buffett, head of the Berkshire Hathaway corporation, has landed the top spot in Forbes' magazine 2008 list of World Billionaires and is now the richest man in the world , surpassing Bill Gates reports The Herald .

Buffett has amassed a personal fortune of $62billion (£31 billion).

Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim Helu who is said to have a fortune of $60billion (£30bn) was named the world's second richest man .

Gates, whose wealth is estimated at $58billion (£29bn), has slipped into third place on the list .

For the first time, there are more than 1000 billionaires on the Forbes list, rising from 946 in 2007 to 1125 this year.

Together, those on the 2008 super-rich list have a combined net worth of $4.4 trillion (£2.2trillion) - the same amount as the projected US government's healthcare bill in a decade's time.

The list also carries entries of 50 billionaires who are aged under 40, including 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of social networking site Facebook, who is valued at $1.5bn.

Billionaires listed in Forbes come from 54 countries and the top 10 includes four Indians who have made their fortunes through steel and real estate.

The average age of a billionaire on the Forbes list has dropped to 61, thanks in part to the growth of wealth in Russia, where the average age of a billionaire is 46.
There are 35 British billionaires, although 49 billionaires actually live in the UK and 36 of those call London their primary residence.

Move over Gates

The Times reports , Mexican telecoms tycoon has toppled Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, as the world’s richest man after amassing a $67.8 billion (£33.6 billion) fortune. Sentido Común, a Mexican financial website, has calculated that Carlos Slim Helú, is worth $8.6 billion more than Mr Gates

The rocketing share price of América Móvil, one of Mr Slim’s telecoms companies, helped to push him into first place, according to Sentido Comun’s founder Eduardo Garcia. Shares in América Móvil, Latin America’s biggest telecoms company, rose more than 26 per cent in the three months to June 30. Telmex, another of the tycoon’s telecoms companies, rose 11 per cent and Grupo Financiero Inbursa, his bank, jumped by more than 20 per cent. Microsoft stock went up almost 6 per cent.

The businessman overtook Warren Buffett, as the world’s second-richest man in April, according to Forbes magazine. Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion) , has said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent.

Telmex operates 90 per cent of the telephone lines in Mexico. Another Slim business, Telcel, supplies almost 80 per cent of the country’s mobile phones. Mr Slim acquired Telmex for $1.8 billion in 1990. Mr Slim also owns Grupo Carso, an industrial company, with interests in shops and restaurants, most of which he bought during the economic crisis that hit Latin America in the 1980s.

Philanthropy or Profits First ?

Warren Buffett along with Bill Gates have been commended by the media as most generous billionaire benefactors with their charitable contributions and their endeavours to pour cash into alleviating the world's problems . I have before casted a cloud upon Bill Gates halo here , now it is Warren Buffett's time to have his saintdom questioned .


The Guardian carries a report upon the annual shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway , Warren Buffett's conglomerate and if you had put $1,000 into Berkshire in 1965 it is now worth $7m. Last year, the firm achieved an 18% rise in the per-share value of its portfolio, which runs from Fruit of the Loom underwear to Dairy Queen cafeterias, Justin cowboy boots and Yorkshire Electricity.
A resolution criticising Berkshire Hathaway's stake in PetroChina, Berkshire Hathaway, holds 2.3 billion shares , or 1.3% of the foreign ownership of the oil company, a subsidiary of China's state oil company, CNPC, which has extensive interests in Sudan was put to a vote.
"CNPC is by far the most irresponsible and abusive oil investor in Sudan," said Jason Miller of the Sudan Divestment Taskforce. "At least 70% of the funds they provide to Sudan get funnelled into the Sudanese military."

A report in 2000 by a Canadian government commission said an airstrip at Heglig, operated by Sudan's Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., was a staging area for military attacks on civilians. CNPC owns 40% of Greater Nile . Chinese-made helicopter gunships, based at CNPC airstrips in the country, to conduct raids on civilians !!

according to the Harvard Corp., which manages Harvard University's endowment funds, oil production has become "essential to the government's capacity to fund military operations" — a view shared by the U.S. Department of Energy. For this reason, Harvard has divested from firms with ties to Sudan.

At Buffett's urging, a proposal that would have required the company to sell its $3.3-billion stake in PetroChina was defeated . Profit before principle .

Of course , this is not an isolated case of Buffett's disregard for social conscience .

According to the L.A. Times and also here , about $56.4 billion, or 87% of Berkshire's stock holdings, is invested in companies criticized by research groups for profiting from environmental irresponsibility, human rights violations and other activities that undermine good works or its goals of improving the lot of humankind that Buffett may intend .

The holdings of Berkshire Hathaway, totaling more than $4.6 billion in eight companies, came in dead last by a wide margin in a ranking of oil and gas holdings among the 100 largest investors in the United States. The ranking was based on social, environmental and governance performance ratings developed by the investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a related ownership analysis by Cary Krosinsky of CapitalBridge, a capital markets intelligence firm.More than any other large investor, Berkshire bought into oil companies whose records on greenhouse gas emissions, safety, business ethics, human rights and other issues significantly lagged those of their peers.

Berkshire holds about $64 million in pharmaceutical companies, for example, whose pricing policies have tended to keep antiretroviral drugs out of reach for HIV/AIDS patients in developing nations .

Berkshire also owns shares worth $28.5 billion in companies accused of human rights abuses, including $921 million in the Wal-Mart who have paid fines or lost rulings in regulatory and court cases accusing it of violating laws banning child labor and governing union organizing and adult working conditions.

A few years ago, Buffett said, he considered buying a tobacco company in Tennessee. He said he would invest in such companies in the future if he thought it would be profitable.Berkshire subsidiary General Re Corp. holds a small investment in Altria Group Inc., the nation's leading cigarette maker.

Among Berkshire's top 100 investments, 74 were evaluated for compensation problems by either KLD Research & Analytics, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., or Goldman Sachs. Of those, 35 were in companies flagged for overpaying chief executives and 50 in companies flagged for excessive rewards for board members.

Berkshire holdings worth more than $21 billion also fared poorly on overall corporate governance, including accounting procedures; transparency on environmental and social policies; and lawsuits or regulatory problems concerning harm to investors, employees, customers or local communities.

Also at that share-holders meeting , a woman from the Karuk Indian reservation in northern California who broke down in tears as she described how two hydroelectric dams operated by a Berkshire subsidiary, PacifiCorp, have destroyed her community's salmon-fishing livelihood.
"My people are a river people. Our entire culture, religion and subsistence is centred around the river," she said

Buffett conceded little ground. "The world runs on electricity and it wants more electricity," he told the Karuk representatives .

Charity for some , a cold-hearted business reply to others.

Buffett's philanthropy is based upon robbing Peter to pay Paul , and it is a policy that Paul is unlikely to decry.

Cheap Bill Gates

In a grand gesture Bill Gates announces Microsoft software will sell for just $3 (£1.50) in some parts of the world in an attempt to double the number of global PC users . Under the banner of its Unlimited Potential scheme, it is aimed at bridging the digital divide. The scheme aims to bring the benefit of computing technology to the remaining five sixths of the world's population, who currently live without it.

But , read on ...

"This is not a philanthropic effort, this is a business," Orlando Ayala of Microsoft told the Reuter's news agency.

In many developing countries pirated versions of Microsoft software are sold very cheaply anyway and governments will be required to provide free computers to schools, capable of running Windows, to be eligible for the discounted software - a captured market .

Bill Gates , Charity , and Profits .

AT the end of 2005, the Gates Foundation endowment stood at $35 billion, making it the largest in the world. Then in June 2006, Warren E. Buffett, the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion in installments from his personal fortune. Not counting tens of billions of dollars more that Gates himself has promised, the total is higher than the gross domestic products of 70% of the world's nations.
Like most philanthropies, the Gates Foundation gives away at least 5% of its worth every year, to avoid paying most taxes. It invests the other 95% of its worth. This endowment is managed by Bill Gates Investments .
Monica Harrington, a senior policy officer at the Foundation, said the investment managers had one goal: returns -"that will allow for the continued funding of foundation programs and grant making."

The Los Angeles Times found that the Gates Foundation has holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices . Using the most recent data available, a Times tally showed that hundreds of Gates Foundation investments , 41% of its assets, not including U.S. and foreign government securities — have been in companies that countered the foundation's charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.

The Gates Foundation has put $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. Yet - it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the Niger Delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe. Hundreds of flares at oil plants in the Niger Delta have caused an epidemic of bronchitis in adults, and asthma and blurred vision in children. Many of the 250 toxic chemicals in the fumes and soot have long been linked to respiratory disease and cancer. The bright, sooty gas flares — which contain toxic byproducts such as benzene, mercury and chromium — lower immunity, and make children more susceptible to polio and measles — the diseases that the Gates Foundation has helped to inoculate him against.
The oil plants , whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, find it cheaper to burn nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas each day and contribute to global warming than to sell it.


Local leaders blame oil development for fostering some of the very afflictions that the foundation combats.Oil workers, for example, and soldiers protecting them are a magnet for prostitution, contributing to a surge in HIV and teenage pregnancy, both targets in the Gates Foundation's efforts to ease the ills of society, especially among the poor. Oil bore holes fill with stagnant water, which is ideal for mosquitoes that spread malaria, one of the diseases the Foundation is fighting.Investigators for Dr. Nonyenim Solomon Enyidah, health commissioner for Rivers State, where Ebocha is located, cite an oil spill clogging rivers as a cause of cholera, another scourge the foundation is battling. The rivers, Enyidah said, "became breeding grounds for all kinds of waterborne diseases."

In South Africa , In 2002, a study found that more than half of the children at a school in Merebank , near Durban , suffered asthma — one of the highest rates in scientific literature. A second study, published last year, found serious respiratory problems throughout the region: More than half of children aged 2 to 5 had asthma, largely attributed to sulfur dioxide and other industrial pollutants. Asthma was not the only danger. Isipingo is in what environmental activists call "Cancer Valley." Emissions of benzene, dioxins and other carcinogens were "among the highest levels found in any comparable location the world .
The Gates Foundation is a major shareholder in the companies that own both of the polluting plants. As of September, the Foundation held $295 million worth of stock in BP, a co-owner of Sapref. As of 2005, it held $35 million worth of stock in Royal Dutch Shell, Sapref's other owner. The foundation also held a $39-million investment in Anglo American, which owns the Mondi paper mill.

Bill Gates and his much lauded anti-AIDS campaign .

Gel capsules of Kaletra , a second line anti-viral drug , melt in Nigeria's sweltering climate, where temperatures often top 100 degrees. A new version of Kaletra does not require refrigeration . A hospital helped by the Nigerian government, which gets money from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The fund has been awarded $651 million by the Gates Foundation. Yet the hospital does not offer the new Kaletra. It is too expensive.

Kaletra is made by Abbott Laboratories. As of this September, the Gates Foundation held $169 million in Abbott stock. In 2005, the Foundation held nearly $1.5 billion worth of stock in drug companies whose practices have been widely criticized as restricting the flow of key medicines to poor people in developing nations.On average, shares in those companies have increased in value about 54% since 2002. Investments in Abbott and other drug makers probably have gained the Foundation hundreds of millions of dollars.

Drug makers say they need price protection for research and development. The drug makers, with other research-intensive businesses, lobbied hard and successfully for the international Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which made it harder to move from costly brand-name drugs to cheap generics. The agreement protected new-drug monopolies for 20 years or more.This meant no low-priced generic for Kaletra. The pact locked in Abbott as its sole supplier, and Abbott set prices for the world.
"We also recognize that private industry needs adequate incentives to develop new drugs." states Monica Harrington for the Gates Foundation .

Some critics say the foundation's failure to use its own investments "to promote … public benefit in developing countries at reasonable cost" might trace back to the source of most of its money — Microsoft — which Bill Gates serves as chairman.Microsoft monopolies in computer operating systems and business software depend upon the same intellectual-property and trade-law approaches favored by drug companies.

"The Gates Foundation is in a position to change the dynamic, to make sure that drugs get first to the places they are most needed," said Daniel Berman, deputy director in South Africa for Doctors Without Borders. "But it conflicts with the interests of Microsoft."


On Tuesday 30 January 2007 at 20:00 in the Quakers Hall Victoria Terrace , Edinburgh , Tristan Miller , a research scientist in the field of computer science and digital information management will be offering a socialist analysis , Free Software dot.communism..? , that will be discussing patents and copyrights - so called "intellectual property" - that gives companies such as Microsoft the legal power to withhold computer software benefits from the public .