The Globe and Mail reported this week that the richest man in the world has $150 billion. He's Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon. He's the richest person in history. This is more wealth than anyone since Forbes started its rich list in 1982. Bill Gates had a net worth around $149 billion in 1999, and has since given away billions to charity so has 'lost ground'.
The Independent UK article says that the nine richest men in the world have more combined wealth than the poorest 4 billion people.
In another article by author Tim Worstall in Forbes, he says that the average American today is 90 times richer than the average person in Central Africa. And richer than the historical human being. He proposes that outside addiction or mental health problems, there is no one in the U.S. today who suffers from the usual human description of poverty. Real poverty is defined as $600 a year. Brad Delong pointed out that historical living standards never fell very far below $600 for long, because if they do then they become dying standards.
Tim Worstall, the author, makes a poignant observation: "...we sure do have a lot of people still talking about poverty so what are they on about? The truth is they're not talking about poverty at all. They're talking about how some have more than others: inequality."
Which is where we started: wondering over the wealth of the richest person ever.
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