Editorial

No mystery how world's richest got that way

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Southwest Nebraska has its share of wealthy people, but most of us can't imagine what it would be like to be ranked on Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people.

Bill Gates topped the list again, as he has for 16 of the last 21 years, with a net worth $79.2 billion. Gates, along with No. 3, Warren Buffett, worth only $72.7 billion, have made an effort to do good things with their wealth through charity activities, but let's put things in perspective:

If Bill Gates started spending a dollar a second, he wouldn't be out of money for 2,509 years.

How did these people become so wealthy?

It doesn't take much imagination, even here in Southwest Nebraska, if one takes a look around.

Our newspaper relies heavily on Apple products (that company poised to become the world's first trillion-dollar corporation), but even the Macintosh uses some software that adds to Microsoft's profits, and you can bet the business office and most home computers are running Windows.

No. 2 on the Forbes list is Carlos Slim Helu, worth $77.1 billion, who made his fortune in Mexican construction as well as prepaid phones -- if you use TracFone, Net10 or Straight Talk, you've helped add to his fortune.

Oh, and you've probably bought one of those phones from Nos. 8 and 9 on the list, Christy Walton and Jim Walton, $41.7 billion and $40.6 billion, respectively, heirs to the Walmart fortune.

Nebraskans are generally proud of their "Oracle of Omaha," Warren Buffett, who is expected to soon name a successor to carry on his slow and steady guidance of Berkshire Hathaway investments. We participate in Buffett's wealth in too many ways to be listed, such as working for BNSF, eating at Dairy Queen, drinking a Coke, insuring our car with GEICO, wearing Fruit of the Loom, Justin boots or eating Sees candies, reading the Omaha World-Herald and most other Nebraska daily newspapers, plus too many other products and services to be listed.

As an area heavily dependant on agriculture and the oil industry, our economy is also tied to Nos. 6 and 7, Charles Koch and David Koch, $42.9 billion each, owners of the second-largest private company in America, Koch Industries, which provides products ranging from Brawny paper towels to fertilizers to plastics to the asphalt that paves the roads over which they are hauled.

Others in the top 10 on the Forbes list include Larry Ellison $54.3 billion with Oracle data storage technology, Amancia Ortega with $64.5 billion in Zara and other fashion chains, and Liliane Bettencourt with $40.1 billion and the L'Oreal cosmetics firm.

Facebooks' Mark Zuckerberg moved up to 16 with $33.4 billion and the youngest billionaire in the world is Evan Spiegel, 24, co-founder of the messaging app Snapchat, with a fortune of $1.5 billion.

Yes, it's hard to imagine that kind of wealth, but looking around at the products and services we use in our every day life, it isn't hard to imagine where it comes from.

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