October 19th, 2009
Castles in France. Islands in the Caribbean. With a collective $1.27 trillion at their disposal, the members of The Forbes 400 could buy almost anything.
How about a country? A quick glance at the CIA Fact Book suggests the individual fortunes of many billionaires are as big as some of the world’s economies.
Bill Gates, America’s richest man with a net worth of $50 billion, has a personal balance sheet larger than the gross domestic product of 140 countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Bolivia and Uruguay.
October 5th, 2009
Forbes magazine has announced that Tiger Woods is the first athlete to surpass $1 billion in earnings and endorsement money.
The magazine estimates that golf’s top-ranked player crested the plateau when he earned $10 million for winning the FedEx Cup on Sunday.
Woods has been the world’s highest-paid athlete since 2002 when he surpassed Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher.
August 31st, 2009
Forbes says that the most expensive zip code for 2009 is 07620, Alpine, New Jersey.
The tiny New Jersey town ranked No. 1 with a median price of $4.14 million for one of its luxurious mansions.
The affluent borough, with a median household income of $128,287, topped Forbes’ list despite housing prices falling 23 percent over the past year.
July 7th, 2009
Tokyo is the world’s most expensive city, according to Mercer’s 2009 Worldwide Cost of Living survey released today, with the cost of living up 13.1% from 2008.
Japan’s capital is followed by Osaka and Moscow, which held the top spot in last year’s rankings. Geneva comes in fourth.
The significant changes from last year are due to massive swings in exchange rates, with many currencies at their weakest in years against the U.S. dollar, during the March 2009 survey period.
July 2nd, 2009
Forbes reports that Sotheby’s is offering a 1,500-year-old biblical document that includes layers of text and meaning–in three languages.
Known as the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, the piece was written over the span of three centuries and stowed in a sacred monastery until landing in the hands of a pair of British twins by way of local Egyptian dealers.
Now an English college is cannibalizing its library and cashing out, to pay for some building renovations.
June 22nd, 2009
No. 1 on Forbes’ list, for the second year in a row, is Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
He is worth $30 billion, $5 billion less than last year, as a result of double-digit declines in real estate and stocks owned via the Crown Property Bureau, the state investment vehicle of which he is a trustee.
Rising political tensions have also destabilized the country, dampening even the important tourism sector.
