The report's makers highlighted these takeaways:
- North America was the only region to record an increase in billionaire population – Asia-Pacific, which led billionaire growth in 2017, posted the largest decline in 2018 (13.4%).
- Nearly all of the top 15 countries by billionaire population saw a decline – except the US and three European countries: the UK, Russia, and France.
- San Francisco has significantly more billionaires per inhabitant than any other top city – with one billionaire for approximately every 11,600 residents. New York, Dubai and Hong Kong follow in 2nd to 4th place respectively.
- Billionaires are increasingly congregating in a cluster of cities – the top 15 billionaire cities accounted for almost 30% of the global billionaire population in 2018.
- Fifteen countries have 75% of the world's billionaires and 79% of the billionaire wealth.
- The United States dominates the world with 27% of the world's billionaires. Its total billionaire count rose by 4% between 2017 to 2018.
For me, it is not the head count of billionaires from each country that matters in as much as the number of billionaires per the population and the kinds of economies that generate those billionaires.
To make comparison easier, I calculated the number of billionaires per ten million of population in each country.
To make comparison easier, I calculated the number of billionaires per ten million of population in each country.
From the chart, you can see that financial centers Hong Kong and Switzerland top the list.
In spite of the hand over of Hong Kong to the Communist Party of China on July 1, 1997, the special administrative region of Communist China seems to have been left mostly alone.
Hong Kong remains as a leading financial center. Hong Kong continues to have a banknote, the Hong Kong dollar, which being pegged to the US dollar, becomes a de facto extension of US banking, but without US banking regulation. Combined with an almost free port, that drives Hong Kong to produce the most billionaires per capita.
Switzerland has an advanced free market economies that focuses upon banking and tourism.
Singapore features a highly developed free-market economy ranked as third least corrupt, the most pro-business, and one with low tax rates relative to GDP (14.2%). Singaporeans enjoy the third highest GDP per capita by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).
The city-state of Singapore has the world's busiest transshipment port and the world's second busiest in terms of tonnage handled. Surprisingly, Singapore is the fifteenth largest trading partner of the United States.
Of countries with diversified economies, the United States produces the most billionaires by far, nearly ten and a half billionaires for every one billionaire produced in China.
This fails to surprise as US residents are nearly 3.5 times more productive than residents of China when accounting for purchasing power parity.
It also fails to surprise to find Russia, Brazil, China and India near the bottom of the table as corruption runs rampant in those countries. The legal systems for property are questionable. Totalitarianism continues to be a feature of communist rule in China.
Likewise, two Arab countries make the list likely owing to oil sheiks.
In spite of two world wars waged against Germans at the behest of the British and the French over the last 100 years, the Germans have managed to produce more billionaires per capita than either the Brits or the French.
Noticeably, where there has been Anglo-Saxons and British Empire influence, there are a high number of billionaires per capita — Hong Kong, Singapore, USA, Canada, UK, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates.
Noticeably too, no African countries make the list of the top 15.
Gab It
