Learning from the woes of the wealthy

WASHINGTON, March 12 (UPI) -- Forbes has released its annual list of the world's richest people, and as expected the global economic crisis has played havoc with last year's ratings. But the list is full of surprises and significant pointers to the future.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, lost $18 billion, but the good news for him is that he is still worth $40 billion and is once again the world's richest man, edging ahead of Warren Buffett. Buffett took an enormous hit, losing $25 billion as the shares of his investing house Berkshire Hathaway fell by 50 percent. But he's still got $37 billion to comfort him.

The global crisis that began on Wall Street in September has reduced the world's crop of billionaires by almost a third: A year ago there were 1,125 of them. Today there are only 793, a reduction of 332, of whom 18 simply died. Even money can't stop that.

Forbes said the difference between 2008 and 2009 is about $1.4 trillion in overall equity lost.

Yet far from crippling the United States at the expense of the rest of the world, the changing list suggests that, like the so-far strengthening dollar, U.S. financial strength, in the short term at least, has actually strengthened as huge nations like Russia and India have gone into a tailspin.

A year ago, Forbes listed more billionaires in Moscow than New York by 74 to 71. But the collapse of global oil and gas prices caused by shrinking demand was followed by another, less noted massive nosedive in basic commodity prices. And the Russian economy's years of prosperity and boom growth were based entirely on those two areas.

As a result, today Moscow has only 27 billionaires, less than half the number of New York, which still lays claim to 55 of them.

India got hammered too. Some 29 people who were billionaires on the Forbes list last year aren't on it this year. Of India's remaining 24 billionaires, Forbes said 23 of them lost money. One of them, Anil Ambani, lost $32 billion -- more than three quarters of his fortune. Of course, that still leaves him with more than $9 billion.

India suffered from the great crash far worse than China. The Indian stock market is down 44 percent on a year ago, Forbes said, and the rupee has depreciated by 18 percent. China, with 28 billionaires, now has the most in Asia, moving ahead of India.

Are there any billionaires who actually made money in the great global downturn? Yes, a few. The biggest winner may have been Joaquin Guzman Loera of Mexico, who joined Forbes's billionaire list for the first time. He is a leading drug dealer specializing in cocaine. Far more socially acceptable and constructive is China's Wang Chuanfu, whose BYD Co. is coming out with a new electric car. In all, 38 new billionaires joined the Forbes list this year.

Critics of the Forbes list try to dismiss it as simple financial voyeurism. But the list is important and revealing. First, it is a perceptive guide to the dynamics of global financial power. Ultimately, individuals control wealth and the institutes that generate or dissipate it.

Secondly, out of the chaos of the Forbes list emerge revealing new patterns of order. The fluctuations of the lost showed disaster for speculative and most high-tech companies, also for real estate. Primary energy and precious minerals got hit hard. But global crime, especially the drug trade, is booming more than ever while electric cars and other cost-effective high-tech still show promise.

China clearly is in much sounder economic shape than India with a far more massive and solid industrial base, and the crime, drugs and security crisis in Mexico and on the U.S.-Mexico border has been getting vastly worse and cannot be ignored.

For all its woes, the U.S. economy currently looks in better shape than many of its Western European and Asian partners, although the specter of inflation, far more than further stock depreciation, appears to be the most serious danger menacing it over the next year or two.

Finally, the Forbes list confirms the lessons of the past six months that the greatest of financial demigods are still mortal like the rest of us. Even Bill Gates and Warren Buffett make mistakes and are not immune to the changing fortunes of fate. When times get tough, a lot of old virtues often come back into fashion. Humility is a good place to start.