Billion-dollar losers
Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of FTX, saw his wealth plummet from $16 bn to zero when the company collapsed. Other big fortunes lost:
– Masayoshi Son, founder of Softbank, lost paper wealth of around $70 bn (in today’s money) during the dotcom crash of 2000-2. The company later floated and now he is reckoned by Forbes to be worth $22.8 bn.
– Yasumitsu Shigeta, founder of mobile phone company Hikari Tsushin, lost a paper fortune of $42 bn in the dotcom crash, but thanks to a partial recovery in shares he is now worth $3.4 bn, says Forbes.
– John Rockefeller, the oil magnate and America’s richest man at the time of the Wall Street Crash, is reckoned to have lost the equivalent of $10 bn.
When the wind blows
Has the percentage of electricity generated in the UK by wind and solar increased since the net-zero target was set in June 2019?
Wind Solar
Q2 2019 15.9 6.1
Q3 2019 18.9 6.1
Q4 2019 22.3 1.6
Q1 2020 30.3 2.2
Q2 2020 20.0 8.1
Q3 2020 20.0 5.7
Q4 2020 25.0 1.6
Q1 2021 25.2 2.0
Q2 2021 15.7 6.8
Q3 2021 14.9 5.9
Q4 2021 26.2 1.7
Q1 2022 29.0 2.5
Q2 2022 20.7 6.4
Source: BEIS
Grub’s down
The UN’s food price index rose by just 2 per cent last month and is expected to fall soon – a sign global inflation has peaked. Some items are already coming down. Global falls in food prices since their recent peaks:
Sugar 9%
Butter 13%
Lamb 19%
Chickpeas 20%
Palm oil 42%
Eye on the ball
How many people watched coverage of the last World Cup, in Russia in 2018?
3.572 bn watched at least a minute of the tournament. 1.12 bn watched the final.
Hours watched by continent:
Asia 10.66 bn
Europe 9.67 bn
South America 5.52 bn
Africa and Middle East 5.17 bn
North America and Caribbean 3.56 bn
Oceania 0.07 bn
Source: FIFA
The post Who has lost the most money in human history? appeared first on The Spectator.
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