As a whole, our society is collectively obsessed with the lavish lifestyle of billionaires. The African king Mansa Musa had a personal fortune of $400 billion at the time of his death in 1331. Musa’s Malian empire included present-day Ghana, Timbuktu and Mali.
Billionaires like Warren Buffett pay a lower tax rate than millions of Americans because federal taxes on investment income are lower than the taxes many Americans pay on wages and salary incomes. Because Buffett gets a high percentage of his total income from investments, he pays a lower income tax rate than his secretary. Currently, the highest legal tax rate on investment income is only 23.8%, but it is 43.4% on labor income. To reduce this disparity, we need to raise tax rates on capital gains and dividends to match tax rates on wages and salaries. The American business magazine Forbes produces a worldwide list of well-known billionaires in US dollars every year and updates an internet version of this list in real time. American oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first confirmed billionaire in 1916.
The top 10 universities produced only 99 of the top 400 billionaires combined, significantly fewer than the total number of billionaires who had no college education. Military service produced 21 billionaires, more than any university. If we take a closer look at the demographics of billionaires worldwide, about 88 percent were men in 2019. Only about ten percent of billionaires worldwide were under the age of 50. As of April 2021, Kevin David Lehmann was the youngest billionaire in the world.
Rowling donated about 16% of her assets, or $160 million, to organizations such as the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Some of the ultra-rich can take advantage of loopholes, causing them to pay almost nothing in inheritance tax. Others benefit from the fact that inheritance tax exemption levels are very high: $5.3 million per person ($10.6 million per couple). President Obama proposes to restore the exemptions to their 2009 level: $3.5 million for an individual ($7 million for a couple) taxed at a maximum rate of 45%. These and other reforms would bring in $131 billion over 10 years.
As further evidence of this, 493 people were new additions to Forbes’ 2021 list of billionaires, which equates to an average of one new billionaire per 17 hours, Forbes reported. Contaminated water is a major source of diseases, such as cholera, dysentery and typhoid. Contaminated water kills an estimated 829,000 people a year, making it one of the leading causes of death in the world. The cost of providing clean water and waste disposal for everyone on Earth would be about $240 billion, or 7.5% of the wealth controlled by the 400 richest Americans. A wealth of data now supports the idea that one-time money transfers can permanently transform a local economy.
If you’ve ever wondered about the first member of this super exclusive club, read on. No matter what financial success means to you, you can explore your own career goals by earning a GCU degree. Billionaire John Paulson Our students excel in a wide range of fields and could even be on that future list of billionaires. In the end, we had a lot of fun researching the lives of America’s Billionaires.
With 1,058 people worth more than a billion DOLLARS in 2021, Greater China was the country with the largest billionaire population in the world. The capital, Beijing, alone had 145 billionaires, making it the city with the most billionaires in the same year. We also take note of the institutions from which billionaires have graduated.
Perhaps by analyzing their patterns, we can all gain insight into how to achieve our personal financial goals. Sam Bankman-Fried, also known by his initials SBF, is the youngest billionaire on the list of the 100 richest. He is the founder and CEO of us-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The 30-year-old is currently in 61st place with a net worth of $24 billion. Forbes used stock quotes and exchange rates from March 11 to calculate its net worth.