There are 1,125 US dollar billionaires in the world today who between them are worth $4.4 trillion.
Yes, that is trillion not billion. There are only two countries in the world that are richer than the billionaire club. The US and, just about, Japan.
The billionaire club was $900 billion richer in 2008 than in 2007, so they will soon overtake Japan which will mean that 1,125 people will be richer than any country other than the US.
Or to put it another way, the combined wealth of fewer than 500 people in the world is worth more than the whole of Africa with nearly a billion people, over a third of whom are living on less than $1 a day.
On the current trajectory of wealth generation, the billionaire club will be richer than the US in less than 10 years and richer than the entire planet in about 30 years. If they were all taxed at 90% each, they would still have £391 million each, on average.
Source: http://www.forbes.com/
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