User:Worldbillionaires

World Billionaires
A billionaire is a person who has a net worth of at least one billion units of currency, such as United States dollars (USD/US$), U.K. pounds (GBP/£) or euro (EUR/€).

Though a "billion" used to be a million million in much of the Commonwealth of Nations, the American version (one thousand million) is commonplace now in the United Kingdom; so in Britain a billionaire is someone with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000 pounds[1]. According to Forbes Magazine, the year 2006 saw not only the biggest increase in billionaires around the world, but also was witness to the biggest economic expansion in history. It is believed that in that period, the world economy grew at an extraordinary rate of 4.7%.[2] The top three cities that have the largest concentration of billionaires according to Forbes are New York, London, and [Moscow], with Moscow having the most billionaires according to the Forbes billionaire list published in 2008. In late 2008, new names are awaiting to be added or moved to the very beginning of the list of world billionaires untill not more than a couple of years which show the concentration would not only be in areas with high economical growth rates. These names include Spiros Latsis - a Greek businessman, Paul Allen - a Russian architect living in Pakistan, Behzad Mogaddam - Hamed Kalantari Iranian programmers,and Kushal Pal Singh - an Indian businessman and real estate developer and a few more. Far as it seems, Forbes is going to change the orders in the upcoming list of world billionaires in 2009. To see the list of the world wealthiest people in 2008 visit List of the 100 wealthiest people

Origins of Billionaires
The first Forbes ranking of billionaires in 1986 found 140 billionaires around the world. However, by 2008 Forbes ranking counted a total of 1,125, whose total accumulated wealth measured US$4.4 trillion[3]. John D. Rockefeller became the first billionaire on September 29, 1916