Young Billionaires

Check out George Wittman’s latest blog post!

Amassing a multi-billion-dollar fortune is no easy task; it requires the perfect amount of skill, talent and sheer dumb luck to accomplish, and very few people have succeeded.  However, I recently came across an article discussing the 9 youngest billionaires.  One of the most well-known of these is Mark Zuckerberg, the 29 year-old founder and CEO of Facebook, whose net worth is approximately $28.5 billion.  That’s just a few billion shy of the net worths of Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both of whom are only in their early forties.  The number of young billionaires is growing, and while some of them inherited their fortunes, many of them are hard at work amassing their fortunes.

Mark Zuckerberg, whose astounding fortune only continues to grow.

Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook, sued Zuckerberg after not being given credit for it.  Thanks to a generous settlement, he is still a part owner of the company, and his wealth is estimated at around $4 billion.  Also tied in with the Facebook fortune is Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster who invested in Facebook, and Dustin Moskovitz, who worked on the site in its early stages with Zuckerberg before leaving to start the software company Asana.  Another tech billionaire is Robert Pera, who founded Ubiquiti Networks in 2011 after working at Apple.  Ubiquiti went public in October 2011 and made Pera a billionaire.  However, in the volatile stock market, Pera’s fortune rises and falls on a regular basis.

Fahd Hariri, with a net worth of $1.2 billion, is the son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.  Taking a large inheritance left to him by his father, he expanded on it through construction, real estate and investments.  His brother, Ayman Hariri, also used his inheritance money to work in the construction division as a board member of a construction, telecom and real estate conglomerate known as Saudi Oger.  Another young billionaire who inherited his fortune is the German prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis, who used his sizable fortune to invest, and is worth around $3.8 billion.  Other inherited billionaires include Scott Duncan, the son of energy tycoon Dan Duncan, and Yang Huiyan, the daughter of real estate mogul Yeung Kwok Keung.

 

Ukraine Breakthrough?

Check out George Wittman’s latest blog post!

According to a recent article, Putin has called on pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine to postpone a vote on secession just five days before it was supposed to be held.  This could potentially pull Ukraine back from being dismembered.  This was the first sign that Putin has given that he would refuse to endorse a referendum planned for Sunday by pro-Russian rebels seeking independence for two provinces with 6.5 million people and roughly a third of the country’s industrial output.  This appears to be a major breakthrough in what many are calling the worst case of Russian/Western tension since the Cold War; Putin also announced that he was pulling troops back from the Ukrainian border.  Since fighting in Ukraine began, Moscow has assembled thousands of troops along the frontier, proclaiming the right to invade Ukraine in an effort to “protect” Russian speakers.

Earlier in the year, hordes of unmarked soldiers entered Ukraine. Many people think that they were secretly operating under the Russian government.

According to Putin, postponing the secession vote would create a chance for dialogue between the Ukrainian authorities and separatists, whose demands range between greater autonomy and outright secession.  He understands where the presence of so many troops on the Ukrainian border are a “concern” for the Ukrainian government, and this is why, according to him, they were relocated to where they traditionally conduct their regular training.  Putin spoke in Moscow yesterday after talks with the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who said the security and rights body was planning to propose a “road map” to defuse the drama in Ukraine.  One pro-Russian separatist leader said that his faction was “considering” Putin’s call to postpone their vote at a meeting of their self-proclaimed People’s Assembly tomorrow.

If what Putin is saying is true, then it could mean a major breakthrough in Russian-western relations.  It could also be a call back to Cold War politics, where the Soviet Union and NATO would be on the brink of war until one faction backed down.  I have lived through the Cold War in the past, and that is in no way something that I want to relive.  However, it looks like that’s what’s happening right here.  I’m also interested to see if the Ukrainian separatists heed Putin’s words, and what will happen if they choose not to.

The Aging Farmer

George T. Wittman’s newest blog post!

The America imagined by Thomas Jefferson was an America of small farmers.  And for a long time, it looked like he was right; the vast majority of Americans lived a rural existence as subsistence farmers well into the 19th century and long after Jefferson’s death.  However, that image has completely changed in the modern era, as America has since turned into a sprawling suburb, and fewer and fewer young people are turning to a profession as farmers.  I recently came across  an article that discusses the surprisingly low number of young farmers in America.

The Census of Agriculture, released every five years by the US Department of Agriculture, discovered that the average age of “principal operators” (the person most responsible for decision-making on farms and ranches) climbed from 57.1 in 2007 to 58.3.  Compare that to 1982, where the average age was 50.5.  Data released just this past week put the average even higher in six states at 60 or older.  Of course, the median age of all American workers, 42.4, is climbing across the board.  By 2020, an estimated 25% of the labor force will be 55 or older.  Nonetheless, the overall trend pales next to the rate that the age of farmers is increasing.  A surprising 10% of farmers and ranchers are currently 75 or older.  This is because farming is a tough business for young people to break into, due to the sky-high costs of prime farmland and necessary equipment such as combines and tractors.  From 2007 to 2012, the number of “beginning farmers” declined 20 percent.  Less than 120,000 of America’s 2.1 million principal operators were younger than 35, and just last month the Agriculture Department announced that $19 million will be set aside for a program designed to help younger farmers and ranchers.

The sad fact is that farming and ranching is hard, back-breaking work.  There are a lot of young people who would like to experience farming, but unless they have land that’s been in their family, then it’s nearly impossible to break into.  According to Michael Duffy, a longtime chronicler of farm demographics who recently retired, the agricultural numbers aren’t nearly as dire as they sound.  Many farms are passed down to younger family members, and many farms are absorbed by larger farms, a process of consolidation that’s been going on for decades.  Duffy also noted that due to advances in technology, there are fewer farmers needed.

There are also opportunities available for younger farmers, such as selling directly to consumers at farmers’ markets.  The operators of large farms are typically younger than those who tend smaller farms.  The average age of an operator with $1 million or more in sales is 55, compared to the average age of 61 for a farmer with $1,000 or less in sales.

Danish Minecraft Experiment Goes Awry

George T. Wittman’s newest blog post!

People have been talking a lot about minecraft since its release some two and a half years earlier.  The independent computer game, developed by Swedish gamers, allows the players to build structures out of 3-D cubes, much like legos.  Despite the game’s minimal graphics, which look like something out of the 1980s, it has become wildly popular thanks to the creative freedom it gives players and its addictive gameplay; as of early February 2014, it has sold over 35 million copies across all platforms.  To give you an idea of how popular this game has become, the Danish Geodata Agency just created the entire country of Denmark in Minecraft at a 1:1 scale.  The painstaking task, one of the biggest Minecraft creations of all time, was made up of about 4 trillion bricks and a whole terabyte of data.  The replica was built using the agency’s 3D elevation model, and was meant to be used as a teaching tool.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark: A scene from the game, after American tanks rolled into “Denmark”.

Despite efforts to protect the structure from outside players, players soon started to blow up this virtual Denmark.  The Danish Geodata Agency had disabled the ability to use the “dynamite” item on their Denmark, but had forgotten to disable another explosive tool in the game, the minecart with the dynamite item.  Players discovered this, and started setting off explosives in several different Danish towns, building American tanks and flags on top of the ruins.  According to Chris Hammeken, spokesman for the Danish Geodata Agency, they have no intentions to reboot Minecraft’s virtual Denmark, since elements being broken down and replaced is a major aspect of the game.  However, if buildings are removed and nothing new is created, then they plan to “occasionally” rebuild minor areas of the map.  However, you can download Minecraft’s Denmark map from the Danish Geodata Agency’s website.  It’s so far gotten over 200,000 downloads.  Hammeken claims that The Danish Geodata Agency is actually “very happy” to see players from around the world “creating fancy nice things” and having fun.