Wednesday, January 16, 2008


In the posting of January 14, 2008, "Economic Indicator," there was a bad typographical error.

The original, incorrect, text said that the UN's FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) had established a fund to counterbalance market-induced hunger from food price hikes that "will cost 17 billion US dollars .... mere pocket change for each Forbes 400 member, and for thousands of others."

The correct figure for the size of the FAO fund is 17 million -- not billion -- dollars.

Which indeed means that there are thousands of rich people who could cover this world fund personally, and therefore theoretically have the power to, by their whim, condemn or spare those the fund will feed.

But if the figure really had been 17 billion, that would have been pocket change for only a few, including

Bill Gates, US citizen (net worth $56 billion),
Warren Buffett, US ($52 b),
Carlos Slim Helu, Mexico ($49 b),
Ingvar Kamprad & family, Sweden ($33 b),
Lakshmi Mittal, India ($32 b),
Sheldon Adelson, US ($26.5 b),
Bernard Arnault, France ($24 b),
Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong ($22 b),
David Thomson & family, Canada ($22 b),
Lawrence Ellison, US ($21.5 b),
Liliane Bettencourt, France ($20.7 b),
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, Saudi Arabia ($20.3 b),
Mukesh Ambani, India ($20.1 b),
and Karl Albrecht, Germany ($20 b).

In all, Forbes magazine, the source of these estimates, lists 21 people (or person/family units) as having net worths in excess of 17 billion US dollars.


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