MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Brazil’s 124 billionaires own 12.3% of GDP and half the population lives on 130 dollars per month
Lemann chief investor in 3G Capital figures as the richest in Forbes list The 124 richest people in Brazil hold assets totalling 544 billion Reais equivalent to 238.6bn dollars or 12.3% of the country’s GDP, which is considered one of the most unequal in the world. The 124 are included in Forbes magazine latest publication that brings together all those Brazilians with fortunes over a billion Reais (approx 438 million dollars).
Top of the list is Jorge Paulo Lemann chief investor in the 3G Capital fund which has recently purchased US ketchup manufacturer Heinz and is an important shareholder at brewers AB-InBev and Burger King.
Lemann, 74, has a fortune of 16.7bn dollars, and is followed by Joseph Safra, of Lebanese origin and owner of the Safra bank with assets valued at 14.9 billion dollars. Most Brazilian fortunes belong to families that dominate corporations in traditional industries such as banking, construction and food.
Among the 124 is only one who made his money with internet and the new technologies: Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook.
The list suffered a major loss in this year’s Forbes edition, Eike Batista who was once the seventh richest man in the world and has squandered his assets with the dramatic fall in the value of oil company OGX shares and the rest of his conglomerate EBX in recent months.
But these great fortunes contrast with the official indexes which show Brazil is one of the world’s countries with the greatest income and wealth disparities.
In effect the Gini index in 2011 had Brazil with 0.501 points, in a scale from 0 to 1 with the highest disparities among rich and poor as it advances towards 1.
Furthermore 41.5% of all salaries and bonuses are concentrated in 10% of the richest paid staff according to 2010 census data, while half the population of 200 million lived on monthly incomes of less that 130 dollars per capita.
Top Comments
Disclaimer & comment rules-
-
-
Read all commentsWhat an inane title.
Sep 10th, 2013 - 01:25 am 0Wealth is an asset. GDP is a measure of production.
Very simplistic and inaccurate comparison/measure.
Well, Anglotino, taking into account that any countries well-being is measured in GDP to debt rate, the comparison is not that far off.
Sep 10th, 2013 - 04:26 am 0I think we discussed this little feature in another thread...
I think that the GDP figures take a much understated estimate of the black economy. The vast majority of ordinary 'working class' Brasilians that I meet declare only a small fraction of their income - if they declare anything at all!
Sep 10th, 2013 - 05:08 am 0The true middle class have an increasing proportion of their taxes diverted to non-productive support of the 'favela-poor'. The Bolsa Familia is a recipe for a dependency culture of hand-outs and reduced aspiration. It can bring people out of the official poverty zone, but it does so artificially.
Much better, I think, for BNDES to support and stimulate the milliopns of small enterprises, bring them into the formal economy, increase the global tax-take through generating increased earned and declared income amongst the enterprising 'working class'.
Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!