The number of billionaires in the world rose from 476 last year to 587 currently, according to U.S.-based Forbes magazine.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, with a net worth of $46.6 billion, remains at the summit of the annual list of billionaires for the 10th straight year, followed closely by investor Warren Buffett with a none too shabby $42.9 billion. German supermarket magnate Karl Albrecht comes third with a fortune of $23 billion, followed by Saudi Arabia*s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, whose $21.5 billion puts him just ahead of the other co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, with a $21 billion nest egg. Completing the top ten were Helen Walton, wife of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and four members of her family -- each worth a cool $20 billion.

Canadian nationalists can take heart at the presence on the list of publishing czar Ken Thomson and family, with $17.2 billion; retailer Galen Weston and family, with $7.7 billion; British Columbia*s Jim Pattison, with $4.6 billion; and newcomer Guy Laliberte, at $1.1 billion, the Cirque du Soleil creator.

The strong Euro helped propel 22 new European billionaires onto the list, for a total of 164. Rising oil prices added 8 new billionaires from Russia, which now has a total of 25, in a country where crooked privatization, massive unemployment and catastrophic impoverishment has reduced life expectancy by 10 years over the last two decades.

But the United States still has the most billionaires. Germany ranks second in this department.

In the U.S., billionaires gained last year not only from a 20 per cent rise in stock prices, but also from reductions in taxes on dividends, capital gains and estate taxes.

Similar *trickle up* economic policies are hard at work in Canada, Europe, and around the globe * wherever neo-liberalism is the ruling dogma.

As usual, older married men dominate the billionaires list, which includes only 53 women and 24 single persons.

by Barry Weisleder