The meltdown of global financial markets slashed the ranks of the world’s billionaires by 30 percent in 2008, Forbes magazine reports in its annual tally of the planet’s richest people. “The world has become a wealth wasteland,” Forbes declares in the billionaire report on its website. “Like the rest of us, the richest people in the world have endured a financial disaster over the past year.”
Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ net worth dived to $40 billion from $58 billion a year earlier. Despite that decline, he reclaimed the title of world’s richest man because two other billionaires lost more, on paper, than Gates did:
• Berkshire Hathaway chief executive Warren Buffett sank to No. 2 as his net worth plunged to $37 billion from $62 billion.
• Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu fell to No. 3, with wealth of $35 billion, down from $60 billion.
Overall, the number of billionaires fell to 793 from 1,125 a year ago, Forbes said. Their collective net worth: $2.4 trillion, a drop of $2 trillion. Los Angeles Times
