Billionaires: 10 Intriguing New Facts About Who’s Getting Rich Now
A new Chinese billionaire was created almost every week in the first quarter of 2015, according to a just-released report by UBS and PwC.
"Asia's billionaires make up 36 percent of self-made billionaire wealth, overtaking Europe for the first time and second only to the U.S.," said Antoinette Hoon, private banking advisory services partner for PwC in Hong Kong. “Looking forward, we expect the region to be the center of new billionaire wealth creation.”
Related: 6 Traits of an Emerging Millionaire: Are You One?
The report, which looked at data for 1,300 billionaires over 19 years, found – unsurprisingly -- that entrepreneurship is a powerful force for wealth creation. “Billionaires: Master architects of great wealth and lasting legacies" also noted that many billionaires are embracing philanthropy to build a legacy.
Here are 10 other findings of the report:
- 917 self-made billionaires generated more than $3.6 trillion of global wealth between 1995 and 2014.
- Of them, 23 percent launched their first business before age 30; 68 percent before turning 40.
- The second-highest number of self-made American billionaires (27.3 percent) in the last two decades came out of the tech sector.
- Finance produced 30 percent of U.S. billionaires, but they aren’t as rich as their counterparts in tech; their average net worth is $4.5 billion, compared with $7.8 billion for tech moneybags.
- In Europe and Asia, self-made billionaires mostly made their money in the consumer industry. Their wealth averages $5.7 billion. Tech entrepreneurs in Europe and Asia were the second-richest group with an average worth of $3.8 billion.
- More than two-thirds of global billionaires are over 60 years old and have more than one child.
- The average age of Asia billionaires is 57, 10 years younger than in the U.S. and Europe.
- About one fourth of Asian billionaires had impoverished childhoods, compared with 8 percent in the U.S. and 6 percent in Europe.
- 60 percent of self-made billionaires in the U.S. and Europe retain their businesses, 30 percent dispose of part of their business via an IPO or trade sale, with 10 percent selling outright.
- In Europe and Asia, billionaires are most likely to create a business dynasty, with 57 percent of European and 56 percent of Asian billionaire families, respectively, taking over the family business when the founder retires. In the U.S., just 36 percent of businesses remain family-run once the founder retires.
Stat of the Day: 0.2%
The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley tweets: “In order to raise enough revenue to start paying down the debt, Trump would need tariffs to be ~4% of GDP. They're currently 0.2%.”
Read Tankersley’s full breakdown of why tariffs won’t come close to eliminating the deficit or paying down the national debt here.
Number of the Day: 44%
The “short-term” health plans the Trump administration is promoting as low-cost alternatives to Obamacare aren’t bound by the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to spend a substantial majority of their premium revenues on medical care. UnitedHealth is the largest seller of short-term plans, according to Axios, which provided this interesting detail on just how profitable this type of insurance can be: “United’s short-term plans paid out 44% of their premium revenues last year for medical care. ACA plans have to pay out at least 80%.”
Number of the Day: 4,229
The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers on Wednesday updated their database of false and misleading claims made by President Trump: “As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months.”
The tally, which works out to an average of almost 7.6 false or misleading claims a day, includes 432 problematics statements on trade and 336 claims on taxes. “Eighty-eight times, he has made the false assertion that he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history,” the Post says.
Number of the Day: $3 Billion
A new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services finds that Medicare’s prescription drug program could have saved almost $3 billion in 2016 if pharmacies dispensed generic drugs instead of their brand-name counterparts, Axios reports. “But the savings total is inflated a bit, which HHS admits, because it doesn’t include rebates that brand-name drug makers give to [pharmacy benefit managers] and health plans — and PBMs are known to play games with generic drugs to juice their profits.”
Chart of the Day: Public Spending on Job Programs
President Trump announced on Thursday the creation of a National Council for the American Worker, charged with developing “a national strategy for training and retraining workers for high-demand industries,” his daughter Ivanka wrote in The Wall Street Journal. A report from the president’s National Council on Economic Advisers earlier this week made it clear that the U.S. currently spends less public money on job programs than many other developed countries.
