Forbes hails 'the richest year in human history

[NashVegas]

The number of people entitled to call themselves billionaires has skyrocketed over the past year, concentrating a staggering $3.5 trillion (£1.8trillion) of wealth into the hands of 946 men and (occasionally) women.

According to Forbes magazine, for years the official arbiter of the fortunes of the super-rich, a heady cocktail of global economic growth and soaring asset prices has created 178 new billionaires in just 12 months.

"This is the richest year in human history," declared the magazine's founder, Steve Forbes. "The best way to create wealth is to have free markets and free people, and more and more of the world is realising it."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2341353.ece

How exciting! Aren't you excited?

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Excited? Nah - I'm too busy counting my billions...

:D

[Joe Bacon]

21. Oh, I'm too busy counting the TRILLIONS...

...In the Republican Borrow and Spend legacy called THE NATIONAL DEBT! :puke:

[Lithos]

2. There is a difference between creating wealth

And concentrating it. The title could have easily been the growing disparity between the Extremely wealthy and the rest of the world increased dramatically this year.

L-

[DemoTex]

27. Another appropriate title: "Biggest Transfer of Wealth in History."

This wealth was not created. It was transferred. My hard-earned pension (terminated 3/31/2003) went to "create" more wealth for some fat bastard who neither needed nor appreciated it. Concentration happens after the transfer of the wealth.

[Megahurtz]

33. Exactly.

It's just like robbing the Poor and handing it over to the Rich.

That's all that's happened. Those gluttonous Bastards never earned that money.

[leveymg]

3. Almost every dollar made by the substitution of people by machines or cheaper people.

Those who praise this tend to forget that essential fact - almost all this great aggregation of wealth at the top is at the expense of the middle class.

[w4rma]

8. Exactly. This isn't "creating" wealth it's *concentrating* wealth. (nt)

[htuttle]

4. In a world of fiat currency, this is meaningless...

...other than to demonstrate the incredible disparity between thems that have and thems that have not.

[camero]

5. Behind every great fortune is a great crime

There seems to be a record number of criminals now.

[Megahurtz]

34. And What's Worse They Get Away With It.

Enabled by our Government.:grr:

[GeorgeGist]

6. I wonder how many people were made poor...

in order to create those 178 billionaires? According to the World Bank, it would take over 100000 folks making the world per capita income to equal just one billionaire. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GNIPC.pdf

[OhioChick]

7. As the Poor Get Poorer...

and the Middle Class bleeds.

[mainegreen]

9. I've we average out all our destruction with our production, I doubt we're 'generating wealth'.

In fact we're probably going into debt. Who do you stick the bill to when the whole world goes bankrupt?

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

10. Oh goody, just what we need, more billionaires. Just imagine the birthday bashes they throw.

Whoopee. :eyes: MKJ

[Roland99]

11. Fine to create wealth PROVIDED that wealth is spread to EVERYONE, not just 946 people

*sigh*

[Porcupine]

12. Maybe they can buy us all a new planet.....

because the one we're living on seems to have gotten a little hot and stuffy. The houseplants are dying and some of the more interesting and edible animals are about extinct.

Those 946 billionaires will represent 946 targets when climate change starts to kill people in quantity. It's about time that they started to pay attention to the atmosphere they live in.

[AlCzervik]

13. I'm letting the free market figure out the excitement.

[Algorem]

14. This is great! Now maybe Steve Forbes can afford that face transplant!

[Hand]

45. My wife once observed....

that he looked like someone who jerked off a lot. :puke:

[MasonJar]

15. Now there is something to be really proud of! Now next year maybe

we can concentrate on poverty and the environment.

[aquart]

16. Oh. Goody. These people are insufficiently taxed.

[bikebloke]

17. The poorest year, then.

If the rich are making out like the bandits they are, then an awful lot of people have been impoverished to make it so. And I don't think we can count on the Magnificent Seven to come to our rescue.

[peacetalksforall]

18. What a load of disgusting gloating - tell that to the person in line

somewhere for a basic of life or the person who has given up hope and doesn't get in a line. How many of them are in our country - the country we have to share with Forbes.

I call for it again - let the 27-37% of the people who support Cheney and Bush have a proportionate amount of the land - so they may cater to war mongering, off shore banking/legislation free enterprises, ten cammandments in the courtrooms, and all the crimes they commit (not necessarily the ones they speak out against). Let them imprison anyone they want - of their own. Let them use their own kids for imperialism.

[Megahurtz]

35. It IS Disgusting.

:grr:

[Doremus]

19. The "Richest" Year? I'd say it was a pretty goddamned bankrupt year.

It takes a cold person to be able to step on all the bodies in the pursuit of wealth.

Damned cold.

Aren't we blessed to have so many more of them.

[yardwork]

20. I'm disgusted and nauseated

I'm thinking of the photos of dead and mutilated babies in their parents' arms in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[redqueen]

22. Free markets? Where are those?

Is there such a thing?

[HughBeaumont]

23. Nothing's FREE, Stevie Belle.

Especially not markets.

Wealth hoarding is nothing to cheer unless of course you're already wealthy.

It reminds me of a Peanuts comic long ago: Linus was telling Charlie Brown about a football game that he saw on TV and how jubilant the celebration was from the home team crowd because they won the game. Then Charlie asks "How did the other team feel?"

Tell me Stevie - HOW DOES THE OTHER TEAM FEEL?

Pretty lousy.

[Ilsa]

24. Shit. And I was watching our credit card debt increase over the last

two years. I'm using savings to pay it off now to keep our credit rating intact and avoid the interest. And gas has gone up again from $1.90 a gallon to $2.40, our food cost have increased, running the household, etc.

Yeah, this is great news about the billionaires. :sarcasm:

[Blue_Tires]

25. wow....i FEEL richer already

:puke:

[SOS]

26. The richest year in human history...

New Orleans, LA - September 4, 2005

[KamaAina]

37. Dude! That is so 2005!

2006 was the richest year in human history!!

:sarcasm:

[onehandle]

28. I'm too rich. It's a real problem.

Won't somebody think of the rich?

[tridim]

29. There are too many filthy rich individuals, better cut their taxes again.

Extreme :sarcasm:

[Red1]

30. A Reflection

of those that capitilized on the iraq conflict? petroleum profits? wealth from robust stocks
due to off loading American jobs?

gee, we must have a republican administration.

[Megahurtz]

36. And Don't Forget Those War Contractors!

:sarcasm::mad::puke:

[benld74]

31. To pharaphrase Everett Dirksen

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about alot of money!

[mitchum]

32. Well, it looks like a bigger wall will be necesssary

[KamaAina]

38. ...into the hands of 946 men and (occasionally) women.

Heck, Jethro, even the wimminfolks is billionaires now! Just as long as them doggone pinko Democraps don't go and screw everything up with their goddamn taxes...

:sarcasm:

[bvar22]

39. Is this how it works?

Bush* and the republics take hundreds of $Billions of dollars FROM YOUR CHILDREN (creating wealth, increasing the Nat. Debt), then funnels this money into the pockets of a handful of private contractors........YES!!!! I guess they created a few new Billionaires.

Too bad for your kids and grandkids. :(

[cosmicdot]

42. kinda like a cash advance on a credit card

(that's a 'ding')

that certainly is a big part of their trickle up 'schemes'

... 'creating' wealth by funneling borrowed treasury to the profiteers of gov't contracts ...

I fear it just won't be the next generations who will pay the price. My Social Security and Medicare seem to be on shaky ground under the current Grover Norquisted conditions.

[entanglement]

40. Forbes, without a hint of irony, calls many of these billionaires 'self-made'

No mention of the social costs of the rise of these billionaires. Russian oligarchs, for example, became rich simply by buying old Soviet assets at prices far below what they were worth (usually by paying bribes). International financial speculators and real-estate 'developers' do nothing to add to the productive capacity of the world. Investing moguls like Kirk Kerkorian made their money by forcing a brutal assault on working class jobs. (In his case, it was at GM). The $80 billion WalMart family's wealth was made on the backs of brutalized labor in Chinese sweatshops. One could go on and on, really, but the point is that BILLIONAIRES COST SOCIETY.

[daleo]

41. the richest year in human history - a meaningless concept

How can you compare this year with 500 years ago? One thousand years ago? Ten thousand years ago?

Any reasonable metric would have to be based on things like life expectancy, levels of education, health, nutrition, clean air and water, condition of the natural environment and so forth. This is just talking about paper money, stocks, real estate values and so forth, which can fluctuate wildly over time and around the globe. Calling these latter items "riches" is a category error, in my opinion.

[OneBlueSky]

43. more like the most larcenous year in human history . . .

the year in which the rich most increased their wealth at the expense of the middle and lower classes . . . something to celebrate? . . . not in my book . . .

[Solon]

44. I'm bookmarking this thread, for everytime someone asks why I hate rich people. n/t