the experiences of the unimaginably rich

two articles. two years. 'your' tax cuts at work. also - the falling dollar has apparently swollen the fortunes of those who own their assets in euros. of course, for people of this caliber of wealth, nationality means nothing. they invest everywhere, and they have the kind of money that makes it easy to maximize their returns in a global way.

here, we see the 2003 forbes article about their list of billionaires for 2003. it is a tale of woe and pain. there was actually a tear in my left eye as i read it. i don't know what happened. a wave of deep empathy swept through me when i read the title and opening paragraph:

Survival of the Richest

It's hard enough making a billion-dollar fortune. These days it's harder just to hold on to it.

In this, FORBES' 17th annual ranking of the world's richest, 67 of the previous year's billionaires fell below the minimum this year. Four former billionaires were wiped out entirely. Of the 476 who remain, 218 of them saw their fortunes sink.

god. those poor billionaires. their fortunes shrank. i guess last year was just fucking tough for those guys. they could try looking for jobs on craigslist, but these guys really hate the people who post help wanted ads at craigslist. a lot of the jobs involve problems like the pay being less than minimum wage. or the ads are for unpaid 'interns' with 4 years of experience building enterprise java applications and a master's degree in computer science. but, hey, you gotta cast your net wide when times are hard.

i nearly wept a gushing river of one tear when i got to this bit:

As a group, this year's billionaires are worth $1.4 trillion, $141 billion less than last year but still equal to the GDP of the United Kingdom. In fact, Europe was the only region to remain relatively steady over the year; the other regions saw their accumulated wealth slip.

the dire straits of the world's billionaires clearly required an emergency solution. the fate of the world and the human race clearly hung in the balance. nevertheless, there were some bright spots as the sun of 2003 rose upon the dim and bleak existence of the billionaire:

Argentina's lone billionaire, Gregorio Perez Companc, sold his family's stake in Perez Companc, the Argentinean energy company, for an estimated $1 billion in cash and bonds.

BP announced in February that it was buying 50% of Russia's third-largest oil company for $6.75 billion, boosting the fortunes of Russians Mikhail Fridman and Viktor Vekselberg. Indeed, Russia illustrates the ebb and flow of global wealth. Ten new billionaires hail from the former Soviet Union, thanks to rising oil prices and a 38% spike in the stock market, bringing the total number of Russian billionaires to 17. Three years ago there were none.

in the world of energy magnates, things were pretty good at the start of 2003. argentina was a fucking mess, but argentina's one billionaire (how lonely) managed to sell the stakes in his energy company and salvage his enormous fortune. russia has been a mess ever since the revolution, but the lucky russian oil magnates are awash in fortunes that appeared out of nowhere in the last three years. it's a genuine fucking rags to riches story. yay for higher energy prices!

and, now, this year, summer is in full swing in billionaire-land. life is flush, so everything in the world is good and well. this year's forbes list of billionaires contains a record 587 individuals:

The Rich Get Richer

After two years of falling fortunes, the collective net worth of the world's wealthiest jumped half a trillion dollars in the past year, to $1.9 trillion. The biggest gainer in sheer dollars was Warren Buffett, who added $12.4 billion to his net worth and now is only a few billion dollars shy of ending Bill Gates' ten-year reign as the richest person on the planet.

This year Forbes reports a record 587 billionaires, including 64 newcomers. Among them, some real surprises. In a fairy tale as fantastic as her popular Harry Potter series, former welfare mother Joanne Kathleen Rowling makes her debut on Forbes' 18th annual billionaire rankings. So do two geeks who have barely turned 30: Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who created the ultrapopular Google search engine and are expected to take their company public this year. Canadian impresario Guy Laliberté, creator of Cirque du Soleil, joins the ten-figure club, as does Hong Kong's Michael Ying, whose Esprit line of apparel is spreading, Gap-like, around the world. Thanks to rising oil prices, Russia minted eight new billionaires and now has a total of 25, the third-highest concentration of billionaires in the world, trailing only the U.S. and Germany.

rising energy prices bring in another stellar year for the russian oil magnates. this article on the wire by michael p. regan lays it all out.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates remains perched atop the list for the 10th straight year but investor Warren Buffett is nipping at his heels. Gates' net worth is now estimated at $46.6 billion, still less than half the $100 billion it peaked at in 1998, but up about 13 percent from the $40.7 billion Forbes attributed to him in 2003.

Buffett wins the bragging rights for reaping the best gains of the year. He increased his net worth by $12.4 billion to $42.9 billion, significantly narrowing the gap between him and Gates, with whom he competes in bridge tournaments.

nothing like some good old jolly competition for status as the richest person alive.

Rounding out the top 10 were Helen Walton, wife of the late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and four members of her family. They were tied for fifth, with each worth an estimated $20 billion -- making for a Walton's mountain of money that's bigger than the holdings of Gates and Buffett combined.

All told, it was a fabulous year to be very rich.

The magazine counted some 587 billionaires around the world, up from 476 in 2003. Their total net worth jumped to $1.9 trillion from the $1.4 trillion the magazine counted in 2003.

nevermind that no matter what fucking year it is, it's very fabulous to be rich.

In the United States, billionaires likely gained last year not only from a 20 percent rise in stock prices, but also from reductions in taxes on dividends, capital gains and estate taxes, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.

"High income, high net-worth households have done very well under the Bush administration," said Zandi, adding that technological advances and trends toward globalization also tend to benefit the rich.

thank you bush administration. you obviously took great care to make sure that the most important people in the world were well taken care of. it is clear as day to me now. i understand you had to act quickly and decimate the treasury in order to save the billionaires from the dire and awful state they were in last year. those tax cuts sure did the trick!