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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Banks PLK" data-source="post: 11213282" data-attributes="member: 279320">Did Moammar Gadhafi Die The Richest Man In The World?<img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/eek.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":eek:" title="eek    :eek:" data-shortname=":eek:" />The Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kadafi-money-20111022,0,5740812.story" target="_blank">reported</a>  over the weekend that deceased Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had  “secretly salted away more than $200 billion in bank accounts, real  estate and corporate investments around the world before he was killed.”  The story was repeated around the world, with various news sites  reporting that Gadhafi died richer than the three richest people on the  planet – <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/carlos-slim-helu/" target="_blank">Carlos Slim</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/" target="_blank">Bill Gates</a> and <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/warren-buffett/" target="_blank">Warren Buffett</a> – combined. That is an incredible amount of money and would have made Gadhafi not  only richer than today’s richest – it also would have made him one of  the wealthiest individuals in the history of the world, and  significantly wealthier than every great American that has ever lived,  save the legendary industrialists Andrew Carnegie and John  D. Rockefeller. So was Gadhafi a $200 billion man and if so, why wasn’t he ranked among the world’s richest? To answer the latter question, Forbes has long separated rulers and dictators from our annual rankings of the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/wealth/billionaires" target="_blank">World’s Billionaires</a>,  distinguishing between personal, entrepreneurial wealth and wealth  derived largely from positions of power, where lines often blur between  what is owned by the country and what is owned by the individual. That  is why rulers such as the King of Thailand, the Sultan of Brunei and  Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum are not listed among the  world’s billionaires, though we have estimated that each controls an  11-figure fortune. The same principle would apply to Gadhafi, who took advantage of his  station and literally lived like a king off of the backs of his people.  Indeed, the vast majority of the $200 billion figure ascribed to him by  the LA Times was apparently held in accounts owned by the government of  Libya, the country Gadhafi ruled brutally for 42 years. Reportedly  parked in everything from checking accounts to private companies and  real estate investment trusts, the money was legally owned by entities  such as the Central Bank of Libya and the <a href="http://www.swfinstitute.org/swfs/libyan-investment-authority/" target="_blank">Libyan Investment Authority</a>, Libya’s sovereign wealth fund. As such, while agencies of Gadhafi’s regime administered the funds in  question, the vast majority of those assets were never owned directly  by Gadhafi or members of his family. Just as governments from Australia  to South Korea maintain sovereign wealth funds, so too did Libya under  Gadhafi, established for the purpose of diversifying the profits flowing  from Libya’s state-controlled oil producers. As Gadhafi’s grip on power weakened, some of this so-called “personal  fortune” was frozen by various governments, including the United  States, to prevent Gadhafi from making a desperate grab for the cash. On  February 28, 2011, Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial  Intelligence David Cohen informed reporters that over $30 billion of  Libyan assets held by American financial institutions had been frozen by  an executive order issued by President Barack Obama, a move Cohen  called “the largest blocking under any sanctions program ever.” Cohen specifically cited “safeguarding [the assets] for the Libyan  people” as the rationale behind the action, making explicit to whom the  assets belonged in the eyes of the United States government. European  Union member states later followed suit, reportedly locking down at  least another $30 billion of Libyan investments across the continent and  establishing a consensus of sorts that the billions invested by the  Libyan government abroad were not the personal property of Gadhafi. The sticky point is that Gadhafi abused his position of power for  decades and clearly used funds for personal gain – not for the country’s  benefit. He might have also seized some funds outright, but so far that  has not been proven either by Forbes or in the Los Angeles Times article. What is known for certain is that Gadhafi squeezed all he could out  of the Libyan people to support his lavish lifestyle. And had he wanted  to pillage Libya’s treasury directly, the cash was certainly there for  his taking. The $45.9 billion collected by the Libyan government last  year in tax revenue is equal to 61.8% of the country’s $74.2 billion  GDP, the tenth highest ratio in the world.  Instead, Gadhafi appeared  content to use Libyan investment accounts as personal trust funds, and  stopped short of seizing the principal. So unless there exists some  massive stockpile of US dollars and Krugerrands perhaps buried deep  beneath the Sahara desert, quietly siphoned from Libya’s coffers over  the past several decades, Gadhafi was never the richest man in the  world.bILL GATES who??????????????<img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/lol.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="LOL    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/lol.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="LOL    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/lol.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="LOL    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/lol.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="LOL    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /><img src="/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/default/lol.gif"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="LOL    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /></blockquote>

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