>[Mitchell Porter]
>"The number of billionaires in the world has risen from 147 to 447 ...
>The US's leading billionaires are Bill Gates with $18bn; Warren Buffet,
>$15bn; Paul Sacher, $13bn; Lee Shau Kee, $12bn; and Tsai Wanlin, $12bn."
>
>_West Africa_ lists global GDP for 1993 as $23 trillion. $447 billion
>is just under 2% of that, so perhaps we can say that all those
>billionaires control at least 1% of the world's wealth.
[me]
$1B each would make $447B, but as we can see, at least 5 of them have more
than $10B. And the top 5 in the US may not be the top 5 in the world.
I'd say that as a group they *own* maybe 4-5%. But they may *control* far
more. For example, Bill Gates doesn't own all of Microsoft, but could be
said to control it. And the richest people in some countries are their
monarchs, and could be considered to control the entire GDP of those
countries.
Basically, there isn't necessarily a contradiction between Suresh's and
Mitchells statistics as stated -- it all depends what one means by
"control".
Kennita
Kennita Watson | The bond that links your true family is not one of blood,
kwatson@netcom.com| but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do
| members of the same family grow up under the same roof.
| -- Richard Bach, _Illusions_