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Gates back on top of Forbes billionaire list

by on12 March 2009

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30 percent of billionaires gone due to recession

Bill Gates
is once again the top ranking billionaire of Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people, but the recession took a heavy toll on the world's richest people and the list itself shrunk by 30 percent.

Not that we care much, after all it's the billionaires that created this mess in the first place, and they'll probably do just fine with a few hundred million less. The list now features 793 billionaires, down from last year's 1125. It gets worse when you look at the net worth of the list, which dropped to $2.4 trillion from $4.4 trillion last year.

Trailing Gates in second and third place are investor Warren Buffet and Mexican telco magnate Carlos Slim Helu. The three of them combined lost a total of $68 billion last year.

The only billionaire among the top 20 to gain wealth is New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose net worth jumped from $11.5 billion to $16 billion.

More here.
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