For most of the decade, Russian billionaires spent hundreds of millions of dollars on boats, jets, expensive art and the occasional football team.

But, despite strained bank accounts and public outrage, the tycoons have been loath to part with their expensive trinkets, choosing instead to hunker down and wait for better days.

To be sure, these are not happy days for the country’s superrich. In Forbes magazine’s latest ranking of the world’s wealthiest people, Russia’s billionaires had an estimated collective loss of $369 billion last year, and two-thirds fell from the list altogether.

China now has more super rich than Japan, mostly entrepreneurs benefiting from the country’s surging economic growth. According to a survey released by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch on Sept. 25, at the end of 2007 China boasted more than 6,000 people worth more than $30 million a piece, excluding their principal residence. Japan only had about 5,300.

Japan however is still home to 56 percent of high net worth individuals in the Asia-Pacific region, or 1.5 million Japanese with US$1 million or more in investible assets excluding their primary residence.

India and Vietnam are also seeing a fast expanding pool of wealthy residents. Like China, they saw the number of millionaires increase by more than 20 percent last year, according to this year’s Asia-Pacific Wealth Report.

Japan’s millionaires have mostly inherited wealth, making them far more risk-averse than the rich in emerging economies like China and Vietnam, who tend to be first-generation wealthy and far more willing to take chances with their money, Capgemini said.

Hong Kong’s 95,000 millionaires, led by a clutch of property tycoons, have the highest average net worth in the region at U$5.4 million, compared with a global average of US$4 million.

The region’s 2.8 million high net worth individuals account for nearly a third of the world’s millionaire population. In addition, Asia’s still solid economic growth should continue to boost the number of high net worth individuals by 8 percent this year and for each of the next four years. By 2012 their wealth should reach US$13.9 trillion, up from US$9.5 trillion in 2007, the survey predicted.

With 57 billion dollars net worth Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, has recovered his spot at the top of the US money heap, displacing investor Warren Buffett as America’s richest person, Forbes magazine’s latest list reveals.

According to Forbes, whose list was published late Wednesday, the golden 400 have 1.3 billion dollars net worth or more. However, the assembled net worth of the richest Americans rose by only 2%, or $30 billion, to $1.57 trillion this year. The average net worth of Forbes 400 members is $3.9 billion.

Forbes said that rising oil and dizzy art prices fuelled the entry of 31 new members into the ultra-rich club and the return of eight previous members.

Thanks to Gideon Gono, the present Governor of the Reserve Bank and President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe now has the highest percentage of Billionaires per capita than any other country in the world.

Once dubbed the “bread basket” of Africa, Zimbabwe has been struggling with the world’s highest rate of inflation – 12,500,000% - and years of economic mismanagement under President Robert Mugabe.

Try looking at the numbers: 1.00 USD = 54,000,000,000 ZWD. (Live rates at 2008.07.29) But remember that Zimbabwe slashed three zeros off the currency in August 2006, so based on the pre-2006 Zimbabawe dollar, the numbers are even worse: : 1.00 USD = 54,000,000,000,000 ZWD

Notes in the millions of dollars are useful only as toilet paper and it’s cheaper to light a fire with low denomination bills than with newspaper. House prices and lottery prizes are quoted in quadrillions - that’s with 15 zeros.
A cup of coffee at a government-owned five-star hotel was 250 billion Zimbabwe dollars, or $US5.30 this week…

Zimbabweans says it’s only a matter of time before big ticket items will be priced in the quintillions, which have 18 zeros … Though, it doesn’t make sense to go to work any more and it could take now 10 years to rebuild the economy…

Well, I think I’ll just wait to go to Zimbabwe until next week, so I can be a Trillionaire. Or maybe next month, so I can be a Zillionaire and then I may be able to grab a giant sack of Zimbabwe dollars and throw it all over the bed before I make love ^_^

According to Forbes, Golfing pro Tiger Woods will become the world’s first billionaire athlete in the next few years. In 2007 alone, Woods earned $115 million, $65 million more than the second highest paid athlete, David Beckham.

Woods’ career earnings will hit the $1 billion mark by 2010 but given the taxes (45%), Tiger Woods should join the list of the world’s billionaires in 2011.

It will be an unprecedented occurrence. There are plenty of billionaires who have excelled at sports, but there are no billionaires who accumulated their fortune by playing sports. “A billionaire Tiger would also be unique for earning his money through paychecks. If a billionaire didn’t inherit his or her money, he or she typically made it by holding a stake in a company with a soaring valuation”

Of course, most of his wealth comes from endorsement deals as Prize money only accounts for about one-tenth of his earnings.

When Nike signed Woods to an endorsement deal in 1996, it didn’t have a separate golf unit. It launched one in 1998, with Woods at the center of its marketing push. Last year, Nike Golf posted over $600 million in sales. It is now the biggest golf apparel company in the world.

Television ratings for golf tournaments increase by nearly a third when Woods is playing though. “He has brought a new level of interest and fans to the sport that weren’t there before he arrived”.

Bill Gates is now only the third richest man with a net worth of $58 billion. Mexican telecom mogul, Carlos Slim Helú, trumps Gates by $2 billion. Had Microsoft not made an unsolicited bid for Yahoo!, Gates would have kept the number one spot, which is now filled by Warren Buffet. Naturally, the list had no shortage of Andrei’s, Sergei’s or Dimitri’s. However, it only places three Russian billionaires in the top 20. Oleg Deripaska, Roman Abramovich, and Alexei Mordashov all share the title of “self-made” and each have made their fortune in aluminum.

The list is also includes several high school dropouts, and a few individuals who were once homeless. The youngest billionaire is 23 year-old Mark Zuckerberg (facebook).