Billionaires Booming

There’s good news for billionaires (as if they needed it).

As 2011 gets under way, there have never been more billionaires in the world and their combined net worth is at an all-time high — $4.5 TRILLION.

Now, just so you understand how much money that is, here’s a little tutorial: 1 billion equals A THOUSAND MILLIONS. And 1 trillion equals A THOUSAND BILLIONS.

Does that help, or is your head – like mine – starting to implode?

According to The Forbes 2011 Billionaires List released this month, there are now 1,210 billionaires in the world and the developing world is coming on fast. Of the 214 newly-minted billionaires, 108 were from China, India, Brazil and Russia.

And while previously only the U.S. had more than 100 billionaires, China now has 115 and Russia has 101. (Just so you know, the U.S. has 413)

But wait a minute. Let’s not forget our poor little neighbor to the south, Mexico. In a nation with such grinding poverty that we have to build a fence to keep out Mexicans wanting to slip into this country to steal our landscaping and housekeeping jobs, a Mexican is the richest man in the world.

Telecom mogul Carlos “Slim” Helu added $20.5 billion to his fortune last year, earning more than any other billionaire including perennial U.S. uber-rich guys Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. According to Forbes, Helu is now worth $74 billion. Poor Microsoft founder Gates is only worth about $56 billion and mega-investor Buffett is worth only a laughable $50 billion.

And while American billionaires are still the most plentiful in the world, there’s been some serious slippage of late. Today, one in three billionaires is an American, but that’s down from a decade ago when nearly half of the world’s billionaires called the U.S. home.

More young people are becoming billionaires, too, with six of Facebook’s founders joining the club. One of them, Dustin Moskovitz, is the world’s youngest billionaire at the tender age of 26. I wonder if a naïve young fellow like that could use some financial advice from an older, more worldly man from Colorado who would be more than willing to help him invest some of that cash.

Our own local billionaire – Pat Stryker – is also on the Forbes list with her paltry $1.6 billion fortune. Stryker inherited her fortune from her grandfather, Homer, who founded Stryker Corp., a medical technology company.

We know that Pat has a big heart and has channeled some of that good fortune into many local causes, including strong support for Colorado State University and local schools and other community projects through the Bohemian Foundation.

But wouldn’t it be nice if all these billionaires had such strong social consciences? I mean, there’s just so much luxury that one person and his/her family can wallow in. Imagine how much better the world could be if a good chunk of those obscene fortunes was put to work helping the poor, funding research to cure cancer and other diseases and helping struggling schools provide a better education for our future generations.

The mind boggles.

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