I see. You believe a person's energy, talent and charm can be best measured by their Net Worth, after excluding:
1) … inheritance,
2) … lotteries,
3) … working for a government,
4) … thieves,
5) … illegal gains etc.
• • • Let's review your infatuation with Bill Gates by the standard you have laid down.
¤ Bill Gates looks pretty dicey by Part 1 of your standard.
Bill Gate's Dad, a corporate attorney, heard IBM was looking for an operating system and was not likely to cut too sharp a deal. He told his son, who was home on vacation from Harvard. After his son and an older acquaintance, Paul Allen, located suitable existing software, Bill and his friend purchased the rights to the software with money borrowed from their parents. Bill Gates Dad helped negotiate the deal with IBM.
¤ Gates is not looking too wonderful under Parts 4 and 5 of your standard either.
After Bill Gates established Microsoft, they have lost repeated law suits for breach of contract and have been found guilty of criminal anti-trust violations.
I think you should carefully more carefully consider your standard before jumping to knee-jerk conclusions.
**
• • • The free market is very efficient at equalizing risk adjusted rewards, no matter what role or economic segment you operate in. A lottery winner receives the very highest reward precisely because they operate in the segment of highest risk.
§ … When an industry earns higher than normal market returns, as the pharmaceutical industry does, is a strong indication of monopolistic practices.
§ … When an individual company earns a far higher return on capital than their competitors, such as Worldcom and Enron did, it more frequently indicates fraud than it does superior wealth creation.
§ … Being skeptical of those who create sudden wealth could have saved the life savings of many New Zealanders.
…… smh.com.au
There is far more wisdom than you suspect behind Balzac's observation that "Behind every great fortune stands a crime".
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