Resumo de Book Of Facts - Reader's Digest

THE WORLD?S RICHEST PEOPLE

CASH FLOW

Many of the great personal fortunes of the past 100 years have flowed from holes in the ground: oil wells. Once the steam engine had been adapted to drive a drill and a method of cleaning, or ?refinery?, oil had been developed in the mid- 19 century, the way was open for oil products to become an indispensable fuel for modern industry. For those who foresaw this, and had the chance to invest in the new oil business, there were vast riches to be gained.
It was oil which gave American tycoon John D. Rockefeller the opportunity to acquire probably the biggest personal fortune of modern times. At present day values, it would be worth around 31,000 million pounds. Rockefeller (1839-1937) began his business life at 16 as a book-keeper. By the age 19 he had saved enough to help start a small company, and he then entered the oil business, backing Samuel Andrews, the inventor of an oil-refining process. In 1870 Rockefeller helped found Standard Oil, which swallowed smaller firms, and by 1879 controlled 90 per cent of US oil refineries, making Rockefeller master of 75 per cent of the world?s oil production. His huge combine survived until 1911 when the US Supreme Court ordered it to broken up because of its overwhelming commercial power.
Arab oil sheikhs are now often thought to be the wealthiest people in the world, but they are usually rulers of states rather than gathers of purely personal riches. Sheikh Zayid ibn Sultan an- Nuhayan of the United Arab Emirates is said to be entitled to 6000 million pounds a year- more than 16 million pound a day- from oil royalties which have not been made over officially to the state. He is not thought, however to draw anything approaching that amount, and so the remainder of the money is kept by the state.

HALF A BILLION IN A DAY
The eccentric American recluse Howard Hughes (1905-76) once made half a billion dollars in one day. He received a single banker?s draft for $546,549,77` in 1966 in return for his 75 per cent holding in Trans World Airlines.

WEALTH OF THE STARS
Big fortunes can be made by the stars of pop music, films and sport, and Paul McCartney is said to have earned 25 million pounds in a year in 1979/80, mostly from royalties for songs written and recorded while he was with the Beatles.
US actor Marlon Brando is said to have collected a fee of $3.7 million, plus $15 million royalties, for a mere 12 day?s work in the 1978 film Superman- a rate of more than $1,500,000 a day.
By comparison, sport is not so well paid, although Czech tennis star Ivan Lendl earned $2,028, 850 during 1982 to place himself among the highest-earning sports celebrities.

RICH AND POOR

The Persian Gulf oil states, such as the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, are the world?s richest nations in terms of the average income per person. The richest of all the United Arab Emirates with an income of 21,000 pounds a year for every man, woman, and child in a country. The poorest in Bhutan- a Himalayan nation whose citizen have an average income of little more than 50 pound a year.
Using a different measure- the average wage paid to those in work- the countries of the industrilised West and Japan emerges as the world?s wealthiest. The average wage in the United States in 1981 was 8438 pound a year, in Norway it was 8317 pound and in Britain 5782 pound. By comparison, using available statistics, the equivalent in Kenya in 1978 was 79 pound a year and in Bangladesh in 1977 it was 88 pound a year.

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