And the rich get richer

[b.c]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091013/ts_nm/us_china_rich

[Guest Tony n Terrific]

China is the worlds fastest growing economy. It is predicted they will pass the US in GPD by 2040. It stands to reason that China billionaires are rising.

[Smitty]

Makes sense. China most likely has the best internal economy for the current time.

 

The comment that most of the people on the list are party members is somewhat odd, and I'm sure it's to promote a view of favoritism for party members. However, if a similar list was made of the US billionaires and it was mentioned that most were of a certain political party, would that also indicate favoritism? Now I'm not denying anything, but it just seems like a comment put in to put a dig against those that have most likely worked hard for it, just because of one factor.

 

Of course it was just about the same with Japan in the eighties, when the richest men in the world(IIRC) were two old Japanese guys that owned huge amounts of land in Tokyo.

[weiaijiayou]

The comment that most of the people on the list are party members is somewhat odd, and I'm sure it's to promote a view of favoritism for party members. However, if a similar list was made of the US billionaires and it was mentioned that most were of a certain political party, would that also indicate favoritism? Now I'm not denying anything, but it just seems like a comment put in to put a dig against those that have most likely worked hard for it, just because of one factor.

It seemed to me the comment was mainly there to emphasize how much the views within the communist party have changed. They went from persecuting landlords and capitalists (and in the 80s even still looking down and trying to disadvantage people whose ancestors were capitalists) to their view now that it's fine for people to get rich. Saying that 30% of the billionaires are communist party members I think conveys that odd or contradictory idea pretty well...

 

I'm not sure I find it very surprising, though. First off, a lot of people join to get connections that can help their career. Someone savvy enough to make a billion dollars on their own would realize that there are benefits to membership. Second, there's a whole bunch of corruption and some people do get extremely rich off of it -- they may not become billionaires from it but certainly many become millionaires, and it's a lot easier to turn yourself into a billionaire when you start off as a millionaire.

[Guest Tony n Terrific]

A quote from the late John Paul Getty. If you count your millions you will never become a billionaire.