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Bill Gates's Net Worth Hits $90 Billion (bloomberg.com) 177

Posted by BeauHD from the that's-a-lot-of-zeros dept.
schwit1 quotes a report from Bloomberg: The net worth of the world's richest person Bill Gates hit $90 billion on Friday, fueled by gains in public holdings including Canadian National Railway Company and Ecolab Inc. Gates's fortune is now $13.5 billion bigger than that of the world's second-wealthiest person, Spanish retail mogul Amancio Ortega, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. At $90 billion, the Microsoft Corp. co-founder's net worth is equal to 0.5 percent of U.S. GDP. Less than two weeks ago, Bill Gates topped Forbes' "100 Richest Tech Billionaires In The World 2016" (Warning: may be paywalled) list with an estimated fortune of $78 billion.
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Bill Gates's Net Worth Hits $90 Billion More

Bill Gates's Net Worth Hits $90 Billion

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  • Nope, no wealth inequality here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday August 22, 2016 @08:57PM (#52752513)
    none whatsoever [cnn.com].
    • There is wealth inequality but it roughly correlates to an effort and risk-tolerance inequality, outside of the typical exceptions like inherited wealth and some lucky hedge fundies.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by JustNiz ( 692889 )

        Sorry but there's no way one person should be allowed to acquire so much personal wealth that in the list of the worlds 191 countries by GDP, he individually is the 68th richest.

        http://statisticstimes.com/eco... [statisticstimes.com]

        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by smooth wombat ( 796938 )

          Why? Because you say so? Because you haven't been smart/lucky/whatever enough to get such a fortune?

          Regardless of how you feel about the guy he earned his money. He didn't have daddy give him a few million to get started (like Trump did), nor have daddy bail him out to protect him from his own incompetence (like both Bush and Trump had done).

          Gates is the one who came up with the idea, ran with it, invested his money (initially) and created Microsoft. He then used his money to take on more risk for which he

          • Re:Nope, no wealth inequality here (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Monday August 22, 2016 @10:32PM (#52752967)

            . He didn't have daddy give him a few million to get started

            No, just be on the board of IBM to help him get MS DOS on literally every machine. And his dad was worth millions, so getting some startup cash wasn't impossible.

            That said, he is giving away a lot of his cash.

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

              That said, he is giving away a lot of his cash.

              Bill Gates is not giving away money. He is spending it. He claims to be spending it on humanitarian aid, but he really isn't. He's spending it to disrupt education, he's spending it to spread strong IP law. He's spending it, ironically, to make more of it; the foundation is invested in profitable businesses which are literally killing people [latimes.com] . After that story broke the foundation announced that it would review the ethics of its investments, then un-announced that (took the announcement down from their PR

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by Alomex ( 148003 )

              His dad wasn't on the board of IBM. His mom was in the board of a charity where she had met the chair of IBM. Even so, IBM wanted CP/M but Gary Kildall blew up the deal, only then did IBM approached Bill Gates and asked him if he could provide an OS for the new IBM PC.

              Sure, the connection did help, but it wasn't pivotal to the deal. They were already in talks with Microsoft to buy Microsoft Basic which was the standard back then, shipped with all personal computers from all makers. They offered Microsoft t

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            He didn't have daddy give him a few million to get started

            Hahaha...maybe you should look into how his mommy helped him start Microsoft.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by no-body ( 127863 )

            It doesn't get much better than that.

            hmmm.....
            Weird - no software patents, skalp CP/M and ...

            http://forwardthinking.pcmag.c... [pcmag.com]
            After a couple of years then...

            In his 43-page conclusions of law, Judge Jackson's final judgment on the evidence, the judge wrote that ''the court concludes that Microsoft maintained its monopoly power by anticompetitive means and attempted to monopolize the Web browser market,'' as well as ''unlawfully tying its Web browser to its operating system'' -- all in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

            (http://www.nytimes.c

        • The thing is, that if you have money, and you manage it properly, it will just grow. How much wealth is somebody allowed to accumulate? 5 million? 50 million? 500 million? 5 billion? 50 billion. Once you reach that first number, you can make a lot more money simply by making smart investments with your money.

          Bill Gates made his money because he owned a lot of stock in a company that started out small and became very big. Unless you seize the stocks that he has, there isn't really much of a way to take tha

          • Do we want to dis-incentivize people from creating the next Microsoft

            Yes, of course. I wish he hadn't created the first one!

          • Does anyone really think that if Bill Gates had been told he could never have been worth more than $10 billion, he would have somehow not created Microsoft?

            • He might very well have created Microsoft, then abandoned it when the maximum he could get from it was approaching $10 billion.

              Without Microsoft having continued so far, computing would be very different today. If Microsoft had stagnated (Anti-Microsoft jokes elsewhere, please) with Windows 95, and left computing to newer upstarts, I expect we wouldn't have anywhere near the compatibility and interoperability we have today. Even among non-Microsoft OSes, interoperability is a mandatory feature. In contrast,

              • Without Microsoft having continued so far, computing would be very different today.

                Yes, it would be literally years farther forward ahead, which is what the DoJ found when they found them guilty of abusing their monopoly position — right before Ashcroft (under Bush) decided that they would not even get a handslap for it.

                If Microsoft had stagnated (Anti-Microsoft jokes elsewhere, please) with Windows 95, and left computing to newer upstarts, I expect we wouldn't have anywhere near the compatibility and interoperability we have today.

                What? You are clearly clinically insane. Microsoft has always been the enemy of compatibility and interoperability. They create their own garbage protocols and APIs when the industry already has protocols that do the same thing. They buy out companies making cross-pl

                • I think you missed my point.

                  Yes, there were standards without Microsoft. There were a lot of them, usually competing and incompatible. Sure, they were open, but vendors still usually picked one based on their own technical preferences, leaving a lot of work to actually achieve interoperability between systems who chose competing standards. Lots of jobs for the programmers writing interface layers, but utter crap for actually making progress.

                  Microsoft's monopoly forced everyone's hand. Microsoft's way was ra

              • He might very well have created Microsoft, then abandoned it when the maximum he could get from it was approaching $10 billion.

                Microsoft was a public company. Even if Gates quit, someone would still have pushed it forward. And I doubt he would keep his $10 billion after the shareholder lawsuit if he said, "I got mine, shut it down." Heck, I would imagine that the purchase of shares would include golden handcuffs to prevent him stepping down at all.

                Back to the point, that's one of the philosophies of capi

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Do we want to dis-incentivize people from creating the next Microsoft, or the next Amazon, or the next Apple? The fact that you can become ultra rich creates an incentive to build these large companies up from the ground, creating new products, and creating new jobs for the rest of the people.

            The top tax rate was 70% back when Microsoft and Apple were formed.

          • You start by taxing the hell out of capital gains. When people end up with millions more than they even want to spend, they'll invest it regardless of the tax rate. You have to keep up with inflation somehow, and really there's nothing else you can do with it.

        • Re:Nope, no wealth inequality here (Score:4, Insightful)

          by somenickname ( 1270442 ) on Monday August 22, 2016 @09:44PM (#52752749)

          Sorry but there's no way one person should be allowed to acquire so much personal wealth that in the list of the worlds 191 countries by GDP, he individually is the 68th richest.

          http://statisticstimes.com/eco... [statisticstimes.com]

          Using the word "allowed" kind of implies that there should be laws against becoming rich. That's a terrible idea. The real issue is that society has become so tilted in the favor of the rich that individual humans have more wealth than many countries. Don't hate the ultra-rich person, hate the world that created them.

          • Don't hate the ultra-rich person, hate the world that created them.

            I can go one better!

            These ultra-rich persons only exist in a universe that allows matter to interact.

            Don't hate the world that created the ultra rich, hate the universe that creates such worlds!

            (Not that I'm not trying to deflect blame or anything. I'm sure you weren't either.)

          • "Rich" is a vague and subjective term that GP never used.

            The story of the artisan from Plato's The Republic is interesting and rational. There are two failures with Gates. First, he has failed society by hoarding. Then again he has displayed a tremendous amount of sociopathic tendencies so we should not be too surprised. Second, the State has failed by allowing him to hoard that much personal wealth. I use Plato as my reference.

            There should absolutely be a wealth cap. Sorry if you don't like it, but u

            • Instead of a wealth cap, which removes the incentive to provide value to society, perhaps a wealth tax should be levied on wealth beyond a certain level.

              A 1%/year tax on net wealth would encourage productive use of wealth, so that wealth then necessarily benefits society.

              There are good justifications for this, because wealth is protected by the state and the people, and so those whose wealth we are protecting, should pay for that protection, and about 1% flat wealth tax beyond a reasonable amount (maybe $2M

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by s.petry ( 762400 )

                Horse shit! Read US History from 1776 to Present. Since we began to track the _personal_ income tax, the through the first 70 years of so of the tax, anything over a million dollars in yearly income was taxed Federally at 90%. We had boom after boom in this country with a wealth cap, and Wealth Disparity in the US was one of the best in the world improving steadily year after year. Since we removed the cap (thanks Dick! Nixon that is) we have done nothing but go in the opposite direction. A _reasonab

                • I don't need an economist, because you prove you don't know what you are talking about.

                  That's not a wealth cap, it's an income tax. The high rate makes it an "effective" INCOME cap, but that has nothing to do with wealth.

                  Wealth is your total value (holdings minus debts), while income is a delta to wealth.

                  Income caps aren't fantastic ideas either, (note it was a high but progressive tax, and not an actual cap), but you shouldn't confuse income with wealth.

                  • In your very diminished mind a scaling tax can't work as a wealth cap? Income tax was one of many taxes used to equalize wealth, and the heaviest used. We have and had others which were changed at the same time as the Income tax (Capital Gains, Estate) but those worked _after_ accumulation.

                    No wonder you can't name a reference for your position. It's based in delusional fantasyland which does not exist. You should really get on medication for your mental handicap.

                    • Actually, UBI has been proposed many times by many high profile economists, you should be able to find these yourself. Yes, there are economists and economic thinkers from a long time back that advocate wealth taxes, or similar, or partial implementations of it. You should be able to find these too. I'm not going to help you because you come across as rude and ignorant.

                      No amount of income tax, no matter how progressive, or capital gains tax (also a tax on deltas), etc, can act as a wealth cap. Simple logic

            • It's not 90 billion USD in wealth.
              It's 90 billion USD in assets, most of them are "at work".

              • It's 90 billion USD in assets, most of them are "at work".

                Yes, at work killing people [latimes.com]. Note the age of this story; nothing has changed. How many people have been killed by Gates' investments to date? How much damage has that money done to the ecosphere?

            • We don't need a wealth cap. All we need is to eliminate tax dodges like the Gates Foundation; its first job is to make more money, its second job is to spread strong IP law to developing nations, and its third job is to make Gates look good. It is exactly like the Rockefeller foundation. We should also have a steady and useful rate of inflation which discourages hoarding cash. If you want your money to not lose value, you should have to invest it in something with value. That is how jobs are created.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by stdarg ( 456557 )

              The funny thing is both of your points are completely incoherent because Gates isn't hoarding anything. Unfortunately I haven't read The Republic so I'm not sure if your misuse of the word "hoarding" is a fatal flaw in your argument, or merely funny.

          • The real issue is that society has become so tilted in the favor of the rich

            A big part of this (in the U.S.) is the capital gains tax. And no, not in the way you think.

            Yeah the long-term capital gains tax is 15%, which is lower than many tax brackets. But those tax brackets are graduated, meaning you can be in the 25% or 28% tax bracket and still be paying less than 15% overall. In fact after accounting for average deductions and exemptions, the threshold at which the average American reaches a 15% t

        • why? apart from you being jealous what possible reason is there to impose an artificial limit on what someone is allowed to earn through smart investments? and how would you possibly prevent it? Are you going to start confiscating assets when he hits a certain level?
        • Where would Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity, hyperloop, etc. be if Musk was only allowed to keep his fair share of $300k after selling PayPal? Do you think that someone else would have done those startups with the money?

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            But isn't he kinda like the exception that proves the rule and the reason there's so much interest(hype/fanboys/haters etc) surrrounding him?
            Who in the top 100 makes similar types of investments that does not revolve around just securing more money safely?

    • Apparently, he can't give it away fast enough. That's a problem with philanthropic efforts, if the Gates foundation had a goal to utilize $45B in the next 15 years, it would take a massive operation to administer that - average $3B per year, average 1 FTE overseeing each 10 million dollars per year project, that's full time employment for 300 people for the next 15 years.

  • i should've bought a ticket

  • No biggie (Score:5, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Monday August 22, 2016 @10:01PM (#52752829) Journal

    I am also worth $90 billion, give or take $90 billion.

  • If you are a billionaire and you need more money then FUCK YOU.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      No, no, FU is the "type" of money a billionaire has. Incidentally, most of money billionaires have is not money in the sense you are thinking of it. It is tied up in investments and such. Think Bam-Bam Trump when asked about his net worth...enormous...he cannot tell you how enormous it is, it is that big...unless he was forced into translating it into actual cash, then it would be quite small, unlike for real billionaires.

  • The central banks of the world are conjuring money out of thin air and using it to buy stocks, which are ownership claims on real businesses with real assets, made of real materials in a universe dominated by the laws of thermodynamics [1]. Think about this absurdity and the implications for holders of fiat currency.

    Therefore, the marginal buyer is increasingly a central bank that can create as much money as it wants, consequences be damned. When this ends, I suspect equities, like most other asset classes,

    • It won't end, they're past the point of no return, Gates will be a trillionaire, and the working class won't even be allowed to access cash

    • The central banks of the world are conjuring money out of thin air and using it to buy stocks

      Cite? I'm not aware of any central bank buying stocks. The "quantitative easing" they're doing -- AFAIK -- is all bond purchasing, which means they're not buying ownership in real businesses, they're lending money to real businesses.

      Concurrently, interest rates are artificially low

      That's debatable. Without the actions of the central banks, we would likely be in a deflationary cycle. Assuming interest rates naturally adjusted accordingly, they should go very low, or even negative. Some of the central banks have gone to slightly negative interest rates, but

  • (Warning: may be paywalled)

    Warning: It's a waste of everyone's time to post something that can't be viewed.

  • a beowulf cluster of bill gates' fortunes

  • Who is it going to be? I'm betting on it being some hospital administrator.

  • If I'm not mistaken Apple is worth around $8X billion so I have an idea. First, cash it all in an buy Apple. Second, destroy the company. Just sell it all off and clos everything. Next, die happy as the biggest hero in the entire history of the world.

  • "Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." --Rothschild, 1744

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