Bill Gates Regains the Position of World's Richest Person 311
jones_supa writes "Bill Gates is once again the world's richest person. He recaptured the title from Mexican investor Carlos Slim, as Microsoft hit a five-year high. It is the first time Gates has held the mantle since 2007. His fortune is valued at $72.7 billion, up 16 percent year-to-date. At the same time, Mr. Slim's América Móvil, the largest mobile-phone operator in the Americas, has dropped 14 percent this year after Mexico's Congress passed a bill that could quash the billionaire's market dominance. That's helped erase more than $3 billion from the tycoon's net worth. What comes to Bill Gates, most of his fortune is held in Cascade Investment LLC, a holding entity through which he owns stakes in more than a dozen publicly traded companies and several closely held operations. He has donated $28 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."
Re:Something is wrong (Score:4, Informative)
The risk would be greatly mitigated with a cap on inheritance for instance.
The U.S. Federal government grabs 40% of any substantial inheritance. What the fuck are you smoking?
Re:Something is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
For a long time, Microsoft tried to use their own LANmanager (based on DEC's Pathworks) or its later incarnation as NetBEUI/NetBIOS as the local networking stack, and IP had to be added via Trumpet Winsock or similar third party applications. The Internet Providers thus were giving out installation media to install IP functionality together with the Internet access.
Internet was in many households long before Microsoft implemented it on the "commodized PC platform".
Re:Something is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
[citation needed]
Meanwhile, I found data that completely reverses your assertion [data360.org].
Average Wage in US:
Dec. 1970 = $3.70
Dec. 2010 = $19.24
Are you sure your source wasn't already inflation adjusted?
Re:Something is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Of course in reality the average worker's wage did not only increase fifty cents, those were complete bullshit numbers he made up. In reality, in 1970 the average income was $6186 (about $3/hour) and in 2011 it was $42976 (about $21/hour).
Re:yeah! (Score:3, Informative)
Got any citations for that claim that aren't from conspiracy sites?
0) Who the fuck are you to ask me? You don't even have a mother.
1) Conspiracies are the norm. Any time two people get together secretly to bone a third, it is a conspiracy. The only overarching conspiracy of which I'm aware is that to deprecate the word "conspiracy". Those involved thank you for doing your part as a useful idiot.
2) If you actually wanted a citation, you would already have found one with google. But you don't actually want a citation, you just want to make me look bad so that people won't believe what I'm saying. For example:
However, Microsoft lobbied vociferously for the World Trade Organizationâ(TM)s TRIPS agreement (the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property), which obliges member countries to defend patents for a minimum of 20 years after the filing date. As recently as 2007, Microsoft was lobbying the G8 to tighten global intellectual property (IP) protection, a move that would, Oxfam said, âworsen the health crisis in developing countriesâ(TM).[1]
Or perhaps you would prefer it to come straight from the horse's mouth [ipwatchdog.com], where their primary IP lawyer places "respect" of IP laws and markets above saving lives, by making it the primary consideration? He includes a lot of weaselly speak about protecting access, of course, but what he focuses on is the law — which the Gates foundation is promoting.
There are no shortage of similar references, and if you are unaware of them it is because you are willfully ignorant.
[1] The flip side to Bill Gatesâ(TM) charity billions. Bowman, Andrew. New Internationalist Magazine, April 2012. ( [newint.org])
Re:Something is wrong (Score:4, Informative)
FWIW adjusting for inflation (and why didn't you?) means your 1970 person would make $35336.47/yr or ~$17/hr today, giving an inflation-corrected increase of $4/hr.
source: westegg.com