Super-rich get richer - Elementary


Super-rich get richer - Elementary

 1. A ____________ is a man who has never been married.
2. ____________ are things that people buy or sell, especially food products, metals and fuels like oil. 
3. A ____________ is the person who starts an organization or a business.
4. An ____________ is someone who uses money to start a business and make business deals.
5. A ____________ is a very rich and powerful businessman.
6. An ____________ is a woman who receives a lot of money from a person who has died.
7. A ____________ is a very, very large amount of money.
8. A ____________ is someone who has more than a billion pounds or dollars.
9. ____________ is the process of selling goods directly to the public.
10. ____________ is land and the buildings on it. 


  2.  1  The richest people in the world are getting richer and richer. Forbes magazine has just published its latest list of dollar billionaires. The list shows that there are now a record number of 946 dollar billionaires around the world. They have made their money from everything from telecoms to steel to Chinese food.

  3. 2  For the 13th time, Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, was the richest person in the world. His personal fortune increased by $6 billion last year and is now $56bn. His friend, the nancial expert Warren Buffett, was the second richest man in the world. He now has $52bn. The third richest man in the world is the Mexican telecoms entrepreneur Carlos Slim Helu, who has $49bn.

  4. 3  The total wealth of all the people on the list increased by 35% during the year to $3.5 trillion. The increase was mainly as a result of rising property prices, commodities and stock markets. Luisa Kroll, who helped to write the list at Forbes, said it was “an extraordinary year”. In the previous list there were only 793 billionaires.

  5. 4  The richest Briton on the list is the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, who is number 55 on the list. He is one of the UK’s richest landowners. He is worth around $11bn. Sir Philip Green, the retail entrepreneur is the second richest Briton at number 104 on the
    list. Sir Philip has $7bn. Next are the property developers David and Simon Rueben, who together are worth $4.5bn and are number 177 on the list.

  6. 5  There are 29 British citizens on the list. The founder of Virgin, Sir Richard Branson, is number 230 with $3.8bn. Supermarket owner David Sainsbury is 432nd with $2.2bn; newspaper owner, Viscount Rothermere, is number 618 with $1.6bn and James Dyson also has $1.6bn. Harry Potter author JK Rowling is at the bottom of the list with $1bn. Publishers Richard Desmond and Paul Raymond have $1.3bn and $1bn respectively.

     6  The list shows that some people are becoming very rich in both China and India, the two most dynamic economies in the world. 14 more people from India joined the list this year. India nowhas 36 billionaires, more than Japan, which has just 24. There are three Indians in the top 20, including Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian citizen who lives in London and who is number five on the list with $32bn.

     7  There are 13 new Chinese billionaires, including Li Wei, the founder of Synear Food Holding. Her company is one of China’s largest producers of frozen food and is an of cial supplier to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The US still has 44% of the world’s billionaires but its share is falling. Russia is also rising fast and has 53 billionaires.

     8  The average billionaire is 62 years old and 60% of the people on the list started with nothing. There are about 100 unmarried men on the list. At the top of the list of bachelors are the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Aged 33 and 34 respectively, they are still unmarried and are both worth $16.6bn. Another interesting bachelor is Russian metals tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, who is in 38th place on the list with $13.5bn.

     9  One of the most interesting rich people on the list is the founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte, at number 664. Mr Laliberte plays the accordion and is also a re-eater. The 47-year-old Canadian founded his circus show in 1984 and has a fortune of $1.5bn. The richest woman, at number 12, is 84-year-old L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, with a fortune of $20.7bn. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman Who Shows Age Is No Barrier to Talk Show Stardom

  1  Pushing a walker through a television studio in central Tokyo earlier this week,  Tetsuko   Kuroyanagi  slowly climbed three steps onto a sound stage with the help of an assistant who settled her into a creamy beige Empire armchair. 2  A stylist removed the custom-made sturdy boots on her feet and slipped on a pair of high-heeled mules. A makeup artist brushed her cheeks and touched up her blazing red lipstick. A hairdresser tamed a few stray wisps from her trademark onion-shaped hairstyle as another assistant ran a lint roller over her embroidered black jacket. With that, Ms.  Kuroyanagi , 90, was ready to record the 12,193rd episode of her show. 3  As one of Japan’s best-known entertainers for seven decades, Ms.  Kuroyanagi  has interviewed guests on her talk show, “ Tetsuko’s  Room,” since 1976, earning a Guinness World Record last fall for  most episodes hosted by the same presenter.  Generations of Japanese celeb...
Read more

Ohtani’s Interpreter Stole $16

Image
  Prosecutors Say Ohtani’s Interpreter Stole $16 Million From Star The interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was charged with bank fraud, after prosecutors said he stole money to pay his gambling debts. April 11, 2024. Prosecutors said that the money taken by Ippei Mizuhara, left, came directly from an account where Shohei Ohtani’s baseball salary was paid. Richard Vogel/Associated Press Federal prosecutors said on Thursday that Shohei Ohtani had been the victim of a “fraud on a massive scale,” releasing a detailed complaint that claimed Ippei Mizuhara, the baseball star’s former interpreter, exploited his access and the fact that Ohtani did not speak English to steal $16 million from him to feed his gambling addiction. The account provided by the authorities largely confirms what Ohtani told the public in late March, shortly after reports first surfaced that $4.5 million had been transferred from Ohtani’s account to Mizuhara. At that time, Ohtani explained how he believed Mizuhara had stol...
Read more

Stadiums: past, present and future

 1. Stadiums are among the oldest forms of urban architecture: vast stadiums where the public could  watch sporting events were at the centre of western city life as far back as the ancient Greek and Roman Empires, well before the construction of the great medieval cathedrals and the grand 19th- and 20th-century railway stations which dominated urban skylines in later eras. 2. Today, however, stadiums are regarded with growing 1 scepticism. Construction costs can soar above £1 billion, and stadiums finished for major events such as the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup have notably fallen into disuse and disrepair. 3. But this need not be the case. History shows that stadiums can drive urban development and adapt to the culture of every age. Even today, architects and planners are finding new ways to adapt the mono-functional sports arenas which became emblematic of modernization during the 20th century. 4. The amphitheatre of Arles in...
Read more