Rich List

A commenter on Mefi gamely stated today that “Billionaire = Bad is a hugely popular argument both on this site and elsewhere. It’s also an argument that I don’t agree with.” The idea of arguing in favour of billionaires was offensive to most others present, and you’d imagine should be to anyone, apart from the 3,428 billionaires worldwide; and yet those 3,428 continue to be tolerated by the world’s 8,298,976,060 non-billionaires. Surely not all of the 8,298,976,060 imagine that they, too, are only a few good years away from joining the ranks of the 3,428? Forget billions for a moment, let’s think of millions. Are you a millionaire? If you’re pro-billionaire, perhaps you are. Inflation has made many Westerners millionaires in their assets (mainly house values) if not in terms of cash on hand, and America has by far the biggest share of millionaires worldwide. Almost anyone on earth, though, if handed a million US dollars, would feel they were wealthier than they’d ever imagined they…