Billionaires Poorer This Year, Says Forbes

He lost $18 billion, but Bill Gates is still the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $40 billion, according to Forbes.com, which published its Billionaires List yesterday.

In fact it's a tough world for all the billionaires. This year's list has 30% fewer people, with an average net worth that fell 23% compared to last year. Of the 793 billionaires, only 44 managed to add to their fortunes in the last year.

To put this into perspective, if the top 25 richest people in the world lumped their net worth together, it would be only a little more than half of the ARRA stimulus package that President Obama recently signed. It would take the next 27 billionaires on the list to reach the $787 billion that ARRA is worth.

It has not yet been reported if Bill Gates will try the food stamp challenge as an austerity measure.

(pictured: a young Bill Gates)

Presidential Rankings

C-SPAN asked 65 historians to rank our presidents from best to worst. Abe Lincoln came out on top. James Buchanan came in last. George W. Bush came in at number 36 out of 42.

In the best category, Lincoln was followed by George Washington, FDR, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Thomas Jefferson.
In the worst category, it's James Buchanan followed by Andrew Johnson, Franklin D. Pierce, William Henry Harrison, Warren G. Harding and Millard Fillmore.
Here are some more details about why they were ranked in this order. Is it unfair to judge President Bush so early? Have we really had enough time to understand his presidency?