Who's got the cash? Photograph: Joe
Raedle/Getty ImagesToday's big news in the filthy-rich stakes, is that $999 million (£528m) is no longer enough to get you onto the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, writes Ros Davidson.
Everyone on the list is worth 10 figures, from Microsoft's Bill Gates in first place - he is worth $53bn - to the lowly No 400, Los Angeles silicon chip magnate Sehat Sutardja, who scraped in with just $1bn.
And in the last year, the collective net worth of the 400 wealthiest rose by $120bn to $1.25 trillion. The surging prices of property, oil and other assets, as well as caffeine sales, boosted 28 newcomers on to the list, including the Starbucks founder, Howard Schultz.
The cost of living extremely well has also increased by 7% over the last year, says Forbes.
The price of a facelift is up 10%; Beluga caviar is up 10%; room, board and tuition at the exclusive Groton prep school is up 6% to almost $40,000; and a private helicopter, with VIP options, is up 10% to $11m.
Forbes magazine, which dubs itself the tool of capitalists, sees the accumulation of wealth as a positive sign. But not everyone welcomes the "gotbucks" trend.
"I think it's very bad," Dean Baker, a macroeconomist at the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, told the Washington Post. Mr Baker pointed out that US economic growth in the past 25 years was actually slower than in the preceding quarter-century, which produced only 13 billionaires.
