<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>MEXICO CITY - Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim has quietly overtaken investorWarren Buffett as the world's second-richest man and is close to wresting the top spot fromBill Gates, Forbes magazine reported Wednesday.In the two months since Forbes calculated its 2007 wealth rankings, the 67-year-old Slim's fortune rose $4 billion to $53.1 billion, while Buffett's holdings slipped to $52.4 billion as of March 29.In an article on its Web site, Forbes attributed part of Slim's "amazing run" to a 15 percent increase in the stock price of Carso Global Telecom, part of a larger rally in Mexican stocks. Slim's America Movil cell phone company also soared on news of a possible acquisition of Telecom Italia.In the 2007 rankings released March 8 ? but prepared almost a month earlier ? Forbes had listed Slim as the world's third-richest man and estimated Gates' fortune at $56 billion.Slim said shortly afterward that he wasn't concerned about his ranking or taking over the top spot, but he expressed differences with Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and Gates, the chairman and co-founder of Microsoft Corp."It's not about having who knows how many bonds, to spend them on whatever one wants or live it up all year," said Slim, an engineer who wears modest suits and whose main indulgence appears to be expensive cigars. "I don't have apartments abroad. I don't have a house abroad."Slim, who owns Mexico's dominant phone company and has holdings throughout Latin America, said his vision of a businessman's role in the world is at odds with that of Buffett, who announced last year he would donate $1.5 billion every year to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."It's very interesting, because he leaves those who are running his affairs the responsibility of being very profitable," Slim said of Buffett. "If they're inefficient or don't get real-term returns, they're not going to be running anything.""Our concept is more to accomplish and solve things, rather than giving ? that is, not going around like Santa Claus," Slim said. "Poverty isn't solved with donations."</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (chang @ Apr 12 2007, 09:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Basically he's a miser...</div>Not exactly. You do more for a community by investing than you do by donating. It's the old give a man a fish thing. You give poor people some aid, it helps them for a while but then it's gone and the majority of them are back to where they were. But use that 1.5 Billion to invest in low income housing and jobs for those who don't have much training, and you've given the whole community a lift.
Investing money in low-income housing means that you have to buy property from the poor anyway (like rundown city houses, any house in Detroit). You invest in housing to make a profit, not to help the poor. It's not like he buying the house and giving it to a family. And investing money in jobs only works when there are jobs to provide. Right now, the job squeeze is very tight and becoming more competitive (getting a good job these days with a starting salary above the poverty line almost requires a college degree).If you mean investing in jobs in Mexico, the only reason he's that rich, I'm going to take a wild is because he refuses to pay a decent wage to Mexicans. Why would Mexicans risk crossing the border when a telecommunications giant can provide thousands of jobs in many countries? Verizon employs about 200,000+ themselves and it's not even a national, let alone, international telecommunications giant. I can almost guarantee he's making money off the poor. First, not paying a good salary because he doesn't have to and second, almost everyone in Latin America has to use his service or risk their company going bankrupt.To me, there's only a few ways to honestly get money to the poor right now. 1) Donations 2) Higher wages 3) Spending money (if you believe the trickle-down effect; I think rich people spending money would just put the money in other rich person's hands so I don't see how it can trickle-down; but hey maybe it does work) If these magnates just paid higher salaries instead of reaping corporate profits, there wouldn't be such thing as "the poor."He's just a rich man that just wants to get richer and won't spend any of his money or donate it because it would just take money out of his pocket. Just look at what he said about Buffett. He's talking about profits and returns. He basically believes that he should be the entrusted with a whole lot of money but has no real means for redistribution.I don't mind rich people as long as they don't act like misers and refuse to help those less fortunate.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DevinHester23 @ Apr 13 2007, 11:58 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Yeah, I thought the IKEA guy overtook him recently</div>I looked it up. He's the 4th richest in the world, but the richest in Europe.
