Serious stuff

Sit tight. Bill Gates is no longer the richest man alive.

Sentido Común - a "respected Mexican financial website" according to the BBC - broke the story last Friday that he had been overtaken by a low-key Mexican gentleman called Carlos Slim. If their estimations are correct (and I don't see why they wouldn't be, it's a simple calculation), with a 26.5% increase in the share price of his company America Móvil in the second quarter of this year, the gap between Gates and Slim's fortunes is now of $9 billion, to Slim's advantage.

Forbes had reported in March that Slim had become the world's second richest man before Warren Buffett.

So now, it goes like this:
1/ Carlos Slim, with $67.8 billion
2/ Bill Gates, with $59.2 billion
3/ Warren Buffett, with $52.4 billion

As Sentido Común explains, Slim's fortune is controversial in México. On the one hand, some admire his pragmatism and the fact that he took great risks to get where he is now. He bought his companies for nothing during the external debt crisis of the 1980's when most investors were selling off all their Mexican assets. Now that Mexico is doing well, they consider it all a fair reward.

On the other hand, he is criticized for abusing a system that allows monopoles. He owns Telmex, which manages 90% of landlines in México and he controls 33% of América Móvil, which has a 70% market share in the country. This allows both companies to do pretty much whatever they want, namely charge their users an arm and a leg for each phonecall. In Mexico, where over half of the population lives in poverty (i.e. with under $5 a day), it can be hard to justify the fact that a man and his family own 8% of the gross domestic product.

Then again, if he is acting within the law...

Anyway, the story was picked up by pretty much everyone. The Guardian, Business Week, Reuters, CNN, A Folha de São Paulo, Le Figaro, BBC News. Looks like we're all loving the idea of a 'Thirld-Worlder' - no offence - doing better than Gates of all people...