"
Rich List billions burned on recession bonfire" says the Herald today. I've come down with a serious case of swine tall poppy syndrome, so I think it's quite good news. Unfortunately it seems that the bonfire is only metaphorical.
The Rich List's biggest loser, Lakshmi Mittal, lost $43 billion from the collapse of the world steel market this year. However, with a fortune worth $27 billion, he remains the richest person in Britain.
So he'll probably be fine. Anyway, this would be just a class war post if I didn't point out some poor journalism. So...
The number of people on the list has fallen from 75 to 43. Between them, people ranked in the top 100 lost $236 billion.
The number of people in the top 100 fell from 75 to 43? What does that even mean.
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The number of people in the top 100 fell from 75 to 43? What does that even meanMaybe you're not really 'people' unless you're a billionaire?
ReplyDeleteThat's unfair. Millionaires are people too.
ReplyDeleteOff topic but I'm loving the Herald's live updates of the swine flu crisis.It basically goes:
ReplyDelete5.00am - flu vaccine probably won't work for swine flu.
(Actually this happened yesterday, not at 5am, but doesn't this just show how hard working the Herald reporters are, getting up so early to copy/paste AP reports)
6.30am - some more school kids who went to Mexico might have swine flu
8.35am - Barack Obama went to Mexico; might have swine flu; doesn't have swine flu.
9.10am - school kids to be talked to about swine flu.
(Presumably to be told their classmates won't grow tails; appropriate insults to be brainstormed)
9.34am - Someone who went to Mexico might have swine flu
10.04am - In a major development, airlines letting passengers change flights for free might have swine flu
10.18am - People paid to do something apparently doing something
11.07am - Even more school kids went to Mexico (WTF? That's 4 school trips to Mexico in the past week!) They might have swine flu
11.22am - Couple of Aussies might have swine flu
11.47am - 9.34am person doesn't have swine flu
12.09pm - Couple of Aussies don't have swine flu
June 7th - Herald on Sunday publishes mea culpa re excessive coverage of false alarms; blames doctors and patients.
In these harsh economic times we can no longer afford to fully staff the top 100 list, so cutbacks are necessary
ReplyDeleteHey also, congratulations on your 100th post!
ReplyDeleteAnd at the risk of hogging the comments thread the original Sunday Times article says the number of billionaires in the top 100 fell from 75 to 43. So whoever rehashed the article for the Herald at 4am obviously wasn't really paying attention.
ReplyDelete