Carlos Slim Still No. 1 Billionaire on Forbes List.

Image via WikipediaThis year again Carlos Slim is the wealthiest man on the globe. With over 74 billion, up 20 billion from last year, He has beaten out Bill Gates 30 billion again. But remember Bill has been giving his billions away lately, so he really can't keep up. But it's a shame that Mexican billionaires are needed to do work that American billionaires just won't do.

Forbes list tells us that there are 1,210 billionaires hanging around and the U.S has 413 of them. Our lead in billionaires is on the decline. During the year, 23 new billionaires were created in the U.S., in large part from the increasing paper value of social-media site Facebook. Meanwhile, China added 54 billionaires and Russia, 31. Moscow is the home to 79 billionaires, beating out New York with it's 58. Russia has 115 billionaires and the numbers are growing because the fortunes were born on the rising of commodity prices. With Russia being a bread basket of commodities for the next 100 years, we are seeing a shift from domestic to foreign money sources.

What does all this mean to us today? Nothing for today's citizens but it could be the early signs of a fundamental shift of wealth, power and influence to non-U.S. sources.

Let's face it the globe has been dominated by U.S. wealth and influence for the last 100 years. We are a benign world super power with military bases in over 100 countries. Our economy and dollar is the go to economy when you want security and capital. But maybe not much longer. There are a few new kids on the block who are looking to take their turn on the world stage.

I wrote in another post how this century will belong to Asia, according to investor Jim Rogers. The rest of the world is catching up to the U.S. in terms of finances and innovation. Soon we will not be seen as so powerful anymore.

I can't predict if these changes are good or bad but just that they are happening.


Reader: How do you see it?