He's been knocking on the door for a few years, but Lebanese-Mexican communications monopolist Carlos Slim is now Forbes' official choice for world's richest man. Due largely to the high prices (the average monthly phone bill is more than 100% higher in Mexico than in the U.S.) charged by the telephone monopoly he acquired from the Mexican government in the 1990s, Slim has $3,000 in net worth for every family of six in Mexico.
As punishment for Windows Vista, Bill Gates is now only the second richest man in the world. Karma's a bitch, baby!
As punishment for Windows Vista, Bill Gates is now only the second richest man in the world. Karma's a bitch, baby!
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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39 comments:
(Channeling Liberal creationist with no understand of statistics):
So there's one really rich NAM? Ha, told you HBD was wrong.
Actually Slim was the richest man in the world in August 2007. However, since that time he slipped and now appears to have regained the top spot.
This guy is the son of an immigrant from Lebanon to Mexico. Yes, Mexico has immigrants, not just emigrants. Mexico is part of the New World with all the land and abundant resources needed to make a first class nation. Yet they apparently are having trouble doing so.
Clearly this shows the potential for success in Mexico. Does anyone know if any enterprising Chinese, Indian and other high-achievers are heading to Mexico?
I would imagine if high IQ immigrants to the US are able to immediately compete with the cream of America, they would become the elite as soon as their plane landed in Mexico City.
If you believe Carlos Slim (or Bill Gates) is the world's richest man then I have a bridge over some swampland you might like.
Cell phone and software producers don't own the world, bankers do. David Rockefeller has dozens of times the wealth of Gates and Slim combined, and not just him.
I love how the Forbes list puts him at $2.3 billion or some other silly number every year. As if! He had that when he was born -- his grandpa had $1.9 billion in current dollars and that was a hundred years ago.
Signed, bankerz is bitchez
Great timing! This Carlos Slim news dovetails with this news of our future:
Minority Births on Track to Outnumber White Births
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
WASHINGTON — This year could be the "tipping point" when the number of babies born to minorities will outnumber that of babies born to whites, demographers said Wednesday.
Minorities make up nearly half the children born in the U.S., part of a historic trend in which minorities are expected to become the U.S. majority over the next 40 years.
The numbers are growing because immigration to the U.S. has boosted the number of Hispanic women in their prime childbearing years. Minorities made up 48 percent of U.S. children born in 2008, the latest census estimates available, compared to 37 percent in 1990.
"Census projections suggest America may become a minority-majority country by the middle of the century. For America's children, the future is now," said Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire who researched many of the racial trends in a paper being released Wednesday.
Johnson explained there are now more Hispanic women of prime childbearing age who tend to have more children than women of other races. More white women are waiting until they are older to have children, but it is not yet known whether that will have a noticeable effect on the current trend of increasing minority newborns.
Broken down by race, about 52 percent of babies born in 2008 were white. That's compared to about 25 percent who were Hispanic, 15 percent black and 4 percent Asian. Another 4 percent were identified by their parents as multiracial.
The numbers highlight the nation's growing racial and age divide, seen in pockets of communities across the U.S., which could heighten tensions in current policy debates from immigration reform and education to health care and Social Security.
primarily due to him being allowed a legal monopoly over a few industries in mexico, i think.
Carlos Slim is proof that this country needs more Mexicans.
In fact, every single country on the planet would be improved if it went majority Mexican. Doesn't everybody realize that?
How can a sane person argue that a country like, say, Czech Republic, would not be improved if it were flooded with Mexicans?
How about Japan? Only a knuckle-dragging cretin would argue that tens of millions of Mexicans wouldn't improve Japan. It's obvious that Japan is broken because there are no Mexicans there! Same goes for South Korea. And Indonesia and Singapore.
I think we can all see now how the tens of millions of migrants from Mexico have prevented America from going into a deep recession! The proof is in the pudding. Thank God the Mexicans have arrived in humongous numbers and now we are saved from an economic catastrophe such as now engulfs, say, Norway or Finland. While we are safely having our dishes washed, they are having their unwashed dishes stack up to the heavens and it is bogging down their economies!
Another place that is not living up to its potential due to a lack of Mexicans is...well, basically the entire planet Earth! Yes, it's true. About 92% of this planet is currently without Mexican leaf blower laborers and the results are obvious to anyone who cares to look at the data.
Everyday that passes, meaning the agonizing meantime before my nation becomes majority Mexican, saddens me. There is a colossal feeling of unfulfilled potential. I simply do not see how my nation can make any progress in the future without transforming itself into a fully Mexicanized society. I just do not see how we can compete. I just don't see it. I just don't.
I don't know if David Rockefeller's wealth is understated, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is, but the fact that he was one of five brothers (and the youngest of the group to boot) would mean that he does not inherit his grandfather's entire fortune.
"Cell phone and software producers don't own the world, bankers do. David Rockefeller has dozens of times the wealth of Gates and Slim combined, and not just him."
Baloney!
"I love how the Forbes list puts him at $2.3 billion or some other silly number every year. As if! He had that when he was born -- his grandpa had $1.9 billion in current dollars and that was a hundred years ago."
Do you have any concept of how net worth is even calculated or how much money a billion dollars was a hundred years ago?
A prophet saw this coming forty years ago:
You better believe they sung a different kind of story when big Jim hit the floor:
You don't tug on Superman's cape,
You don't spit into the wind,
You don't pull the mask off that ol' Lone Ranger
and you don't mess around with Slim...
And Slim is also, weirdly enough, dating Queen Noor of Jordan.
Here's one for Whiskey: You know that Mexican drug lord who actually made the Forbes 1000, Joaquin Guzman Loera? The 55 year old married an 18 year old beauty queen.
1/ If someone had $1.9 billion in current dollars 100 years ago doesn't that mean he would have, er, something like $1.9 billion (plus interest less inflation on the lower nominal number compounded) today.
2/ Actually I don't see why Japan couldn't use a few more Mexicans, especially young ones, or for that matter, young anybody's.
Wow, Carlos Slim Helu is an Arab. So basically that means that Semites rule the world, even when they are not Jews ;)
2/ Actually I don't see why Japan couldn't use a few more Mexicans, especially young ones, or for that matter, young anybody's.
They have robots that can do food service work:
Japan's ramen robot
These robots prepare bowls of ramen, which is arguably more complicated than placing boxed burgers on a tray and handing soda cups. And the robots even entertain the customers. When's the last time you were entertained by a Mexican food service worker?
Slim is a crook. He made his billions charging more than $1 (American money) per minute for cell phone calls in a country where the minimum wage is $4.50 a day (not per hour).
He collected monopolies and then extended them over the border to the USA requiring Mexican relatives to pay exorbitant prices ($0.40 a minute) to call family back home. Meanwhile you can call Europe or Japan for US$0.015 per minute.
The USA FCC had to take action against his monopolies here to protect immigrants. You can bet he didn't much like that after buying off the Mexican government and getting used to running the industry with police backing.
Of course, Gill Bates is a slimy monopolist that needs serious antitrust action, also.
He's only at the number one spot because Gates and Buffet have given tens of billions to charity.
And Slim is also, weirdly enough, dating Queen Noor of Jordan.
Okay, this is weird.
Wikipedia says that her father was Najeeb Halaby, a Syrian-American Christian.
Now presumably Noor had to convert to Islam when she married King Hussein.
But if she messes around with a Christian like Slim, then she becomes an apostate and Muslim law requires that she be executed [or at least assassinated].
Well, you gotta hand it to the chick - she could teach Ashley Dupré a thing or two about whoring.
Who gives more to charity? Slim or Gates?
Slim has $3,000 in net worth for every family of six in Mexico.
Family of six? Why the bizarre metric?
"The USA FCC had to take action against his monopolies here to protect immigrants. "
Now why on earth would they want to do that?
steve your use of 'karma's a bitch' shattered my admiration of you.
actually hasn't gates been pouring his money into making sure inner city freshmen know alegebra and peace in africa?
At least Slim is smart with his money he 'bought' the new york times.
Would it be fair to say that Slim is the Mexican analog of a Russian oligarch? Did he not simply profit from privatization of previously public monopolies?
Bill Gates, for all his flaws, was a co founder of a new industry.
"Actually I don't see why Japan couldn't use a few more Mexicans, especially young ones, or for that matter, young anybody's."
Because EVERY country in the world should engage in infinite population growth! Especially over-populated ones like Japan! That island doesn't have enough people. It NEEDS third world masses. Yes master.
Regarding Carlos Slim’s ethnicity:
Carlos Slim (originally Salim) is of Lebanese descent but his ancestors were not Muslims but rather Christians, namely Maronite Catholics. Maronites (named after a mountain in Lebanon) look to the Vatican for leadership but retain their own rites and liturgy and permit their priests to marry.
Slim could fairly be described as an "Arab" to the extent that his grandparents spoke Arabic, but his family would have been very far removed from typical Middle Eastern Muslims in terms of religion, education, habits of mind and yes probably, genetics, too.
I cannot prove it, but I suspect that the genetic distance between Slim and some randomly chosen Greek or Sicilian would be shorter than between Slim and the average inhabitant of the Arabian Peninsula.
Queen Noor's status as an "Arab" is even more stretched. She grew up in the US, attending private schools and Princeton. It is true, her paternal grandfather was born in Lebanon but he was also a Christian. Her other three grandparents are of either British or Swedish descent.
he is rich but I think Mexico may be the poorer for him. I believe he has been involved in a lot of unethical stuff involving quashing competition.I dont think he much likes competition.
Dear "Anony-mouse": The people of Japan are securing their posterity.
What a concept.
The Japanese are making damn sure that their country remains in their own possession and not in the possession of Mexicans (or anyone else).
What a concept.
The Japanese refuse to be made into a demographic minority in their own land.
What a concept.
The Japanese refuse to enact a ludicrous hair brained scheme to prop up their economy with millions of alien laborers A SCHEME WHICH ULTIMATELY FAILS TO KEEP THE ECONOMY AFLOAT WHILE AT THE SAME TIME BANKRUPTS THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET AND LEAVES A NATION WITH A GIGANTIC ALIEN POPULATION.
Somebody call The Hague. The Japanese obviously need to be brought up on charges. The Japanese are refusing to bend to the law of the New World Order which says that all majority populations in first world nations must cede their land to third world alien invaders in the name of "social justice" ...
Clearly this shows the potential for success in Mexico.
how many monopolies can Mexico sustain?
Of course, Gill Bates is a slimy monopolist that needs serious antitrust action, also.
I second that.
I can't figure out whether George W. Bush or John McCain osted as "Mexiphilia." Pretty sure it was one of them. Or maybe Lindsey Graham.
Does anyone know if any enterprising Chinese, Indian and other high-achievers are heading to Mexico?
Check out this guy:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/28/AR2008102801364.html
At a ceremony in 2002, then-Mexican President Vicente Fox awarded a certificate of Mexican citizenship to Zhenli Ye Gon, a Shanghai native who dreamed of building his company, Unimed, into Latin America's largest pharmaceutical manufacturer.
...
Ye Gon has not challenged one of the government's main accusations: that the amount of cash he had accumulated in Mexico, the United States, China and Hong Kong from the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine to clandestine laboratories totaled $350 million dollars,...
@Mexiphilia:
Do I laugh?
Do I cry?
Do I eat a rancid taco?
Ye Gon has not challenged one of the government's main accusations: that the amount of cash he had accumulated in Mexico, the United States, China and Hong Kong from the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine to clandestine laboratories totaled $350 million dollars,...
Which probably marks a good place to remind everyone that the new season of Breaking Bad premieres on Sunday, March 21st, at 10PM [9 Central].
Brutal post by mexaphilia. Just what the hell is the united states doing? People in other countries are wondering how this could happen. It makes no sense.
Saw the headline about Obama meeting with open borders crowd today. The united states as a nation obviously has no stewardship meaning there are no cops and it's open season
There really isn't a niche to be filled by "smart Asian immigrants" in Mexico. Mexico already posesses a native elite, the white descendents of European colonists. Despite what a lot of you here seem to believe, East Asians and select Indians are not some sort of supergeniuses. Before you go on about how they're overrepresented in the US math team and all that jazz, realize that the US math team, as well as the Japanese and Indian math teams, are regularly beaten by countries such as the Ukraine and mighty Romania. And no, it's not the Jews. It's because those countries are much more focused on math education relative to the US, just like Asian American students are much more focused on math education relative to white American students.
With that being said, it would be much harder for a Chinese or Indian to advance himself in Mexico than in the US. In the US, middling occupations like doctor or engineer can provide you with mad money. Unsurprisingly, immigrant Indian doctors and Chinese engineers can come here and make good money, right off the bat,without "outgeniusing" anyone. In Mexico, those same doctors and engineers will be making a pittance by comparison. There is money to be made in Mexico, but it's not by becoming a salaried professional. It's by breaking into the elite, and that's a lot harder, even for superhuman Asians.
Here is the formula for Asian success in America: a little bit of intelligence plus great work habit plus an insanely single minded focus on getting a stable job with a guaranteed payoff. That's why a mind boggling and frankly scary 70%+ of Indians in my large state university are premed bio majors! Can you imagine this? But in any case, that's not a formula that going to get you anywhere in Mexico.
when i travelled in mexico, far away from the tourist areas, i actually did see chinese immigrants. they were running restaurants and such.
there's enough people in china for most nations on earth to have a couple million chinese immigrants.
Bill Gates, for all his flaws, was a co founder of a new industry.
No, he wasn't. He was a third party software vendor catering to microcomputer hobbyists who leveraged himself up and hit the Superfecta when IBM decided to outsource the operating software for its Apple II type machine.
Arguably Gates' genius was in realizing that he HAD in fact hit the Superfecta.
But Gates himself has little technical skill (Paul Allen was the techie of the two, but he was no great programmer) and is almost wholly a business operator. One of the hardest things for mon-technical people on the Right to understand is that Microsoft software really is pretty poor and that when (frequently politically leftist) programmers and CS majors say this they are not (just) engaging in sour grapes.
What M$FT did was to provide a standard-a poor standard, but a standard, with the imprimatur of IBM-for personal business computers. But the reason it was able to become the standard it did was not just because IBM used them. In the early days, ONLY IBM made Personal Computers could run the software made for them. "Clones" were only partly compatible, you had to have a specific compile of the software for them.
What made the "one hundred percent compatible (legal) clone possible was a small now forgotten company (I can't even remember their name and I used to sell the product) that developed a legal way to prodce an effective clone of the system firmware (or BIOS). As soon as they won a suit from IBM against them everyone else jumped in the business and ran them out.
There were far better microcomputers for home and small business use than the IBM, but when the 100% clone came out they were doomed. I believe that the main appeal to the PC clones was to the sense of larceny of the market. Not only were they going over on IBM by buying a clone at a "huge savings" but they could pirate software from work instead of buying it. Certainly, better hardware (anything based on Motorola CPUs) and OS (Amiga, Atari) did exist and was not any more expensive than most PC clones. (Apple of course offered the Macintosh, but it was insanely priced. Its early adherents bought it specifically for that reason.)
when i travelled in mexico, far away from the tourist areas, i actually did see chinese immigrants. they were running restaurants and such.
Maybe you saw my dad, he worked there as a timeshare salesman for a couple years. He said he came back because he got tired of golfing and going to the beach every day.
Felix,
However you cannot deny that the Chinese have been successful wherever they have gone. Indians are more of a mixed bag as there is a big Indian underclass in Canada and Malaysia. As far as East Asians doing well in Latin America, the Japanese seem to have done very well in Peru and have gelled themselves well with the Spanish/Euro elite. In Brazil, Japanese Brazilian students are over represented in the major universities. As usual the blacks have maintained their reputation by being at the bottom of the heap everywhere in Latin America.
Levantines will beat WASP's any day of the week when it comes to making money.
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