Posted 27 November 2010 - 01:23 AM
I think that the problem is that you are using different sources who obviously have different opinions. No one really knows how many millionaires or billionaires there are in the world, and there can only be an estimate. The same is true when it comes to estimating the wealth of celebrities of other individuals, no one really knows. No one knows how much Bill Gates and Warren Buffet owns. There is a consideration in regards to money that could be hidden away in offshore bank accounts and unrecorded assets. On example, in the opinion of some people, is George Bush and *BLEEP* Cheney. Neither of the two man are listed as billionaires, but according to many people, they are billionaires. So I think that when discussing millionaires and how many are living in different parts of the world or how many exist within the United States, most of the numbers are nothing more than a rough draft...an estimate. I do find it hard for someone to be off by 4 million, but if you are viewing two different estimates than that is totally possible. We could look at the estimates from...lets say...the holocaust. Different people believe that more were executed and massacred, while others give lesser numbers.
The most important thing to discuss when talking about multi millionaires, and certainly billionaires, is the large disproportion of wealth that it creates. If 1% or even 2% of the population own 60 percent, 70 percent, or 80 percent of the wealth, that certainly create a lot of problems. It places the vast majority of the resources in the hands of a few, and leave the others to starve despite the fact that such a vast amount of resources in the hands of a single individual is not needed in order to fulfill wants and needs. I guess the biggest problem in regards to the disproportion of wealth is that it is not only concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, but also a few countries. If you look at the richest countries in the world, most of them were colonial powers. There are a few exceptions, but the United States and Western Europe are overwhelmingly the most powerful economies in the world. China and India have powerful economies, but that has more to do with their potential created by population rather than their economic policies of capitalism combined with colonization.
So the problem can not be addressed because it will challenge the life style of those living in wealth countries such as the United States and Europe, and that is simply something that no one in those countries wish for to be challenged. Even poor people within the United States and Europe level of poverty does not even come close to the level of poverty of those in third world countries and former colonized states in South America, Africa, and Asia. So the issue is every complicated when it is address on a global level. And plus, many people in the United States and Europe, especially in the United States, believe that somehow they have a good chance of being rich one day. Nevertheless, the statistics show that such an assumption is completely false and the vast majority of people born poor or born into a poor family, die poor. So unless you are a good athlete and entertainer, then chances are that you will not move any further than maybe one economic class up if you are born poor, and no class up if you are born middle class. If you are in the middle class, you are more likely to go down than up.
, Please 
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potential for future earnings, and © potential for future liabilities. You may find some other way to evaluate a person, but that's just it - evaluations are subjective and your list of top 5 richest people may not match my list.
