Entries Tagged 'Money' ↓

According to Forbes, there are exactly 1062 people in the world who are Billionaires. That is they have a net worth of at least 1 Billion dollars. Of course with a rapid drop of the value of a dollar, that number may actually increase. LOL

What really makes this interesting is that Forbes has compiled a complete list of those people and also added links to short bios of each of them. There is a lot of good and very interesting information in that list.

Did you know that the second richest man in the world is actually from Mexico? Or that of the top five richest men in the world, two are from the US and two are from India? Or how about the age of the youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. He’s only 23! The oldest Billionaire is 99. So there is quite a difference.

Check the whole list at Forbes: The World’s Billionaires

Oh, and if you are interested in inflation, check my post from last year on the inflation calculator.

Well, today is Presidents day. A national holiday here in the US where we can reflect on the great leaders we’ve been blessed to have had in charge of our nation throughout our history. In honor of that, I thought the above video of people counting cash(which in the US always has former presidents on the face) was particularly appropriate. Happy Presidents day.

Continuing my theme of Origami, I found a site devoted to money origami. Specifically money folding using dollar bills. Some of the folds are really interesting. Event better is that it looks like some thought was put into how the pictures on the money would show up when the money was folded.

Check out the rest or the origami at ART:Show Me the Moneygami by way of Neatorama

The inflation calculator allows you to take any dollar amount and two years between 1800 and 2006. It then gives you an estimate of how much that money would be worth based on inflation. It calculates it both directions. So $100 in 1800 would be equivalent to $1143.21 in 2006. And $100 in 2006 would be equivalent to $8.75.

The data for the calculations comes from two US government documents, Historical Statistics of the United States and Statistical Abstracts of the United States So it is pretty accurate in it’s estimates.

The Inflation Calculator

There is a study that was just concluded that proves that being smart has a lot less to do with being rich than most people think. The study was conducted by a researcher, Jay Zagorsky, at Ohio State University. His study showed that having a higher IQ meant you were more likely to have a higher income, but also were more likely to be in debt and have fewer investments and savings. So more money coming in, but a higher percentage of that money wasted. People with lower IQ’s were generally in a much better position financially than those with higher IQ’s. They had more savings and investments, and considerably lower debt. Despite having much lower incomes.
This is another one of those studies, that if you have known a lot of both smart and dumb people is not likely to surprise you. Some of the smartest people, academically, that I knew in college were also the dumbest people when it came to common sense. A lot of good financial habits, seem to be just plain common sense. Don’t buy luxury items on credit. Don’t buy things on a whim. Save money. All basic stuff, but it seems like many people don’t get it. Just because you make more money, doesn’t mean you should spend it.

Check out the articles at:
NewScientist: Smarter people are no better off
Scientific American: A Wealth of Smarts Does Not Guarantee Actual Wealth