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Friday, March 13, 2009

Forbes: Indonesia's top billionaires

I thought we were all broke by now. But apparently there are still a few billionaires left in the world, according to Forbes magazine's new list.

Five Indonesians among them, in fact, close on the nerdy heels of Microsoft's Bill Gates. (Sorry, Warren Buffett, you can apply for social assistance now.) The winners: The Hartono brothers, Michael and Budi, whose love goes into every clove cigarette you suck down. The result: $1.7 billion. I haven't done the conversion, but that's a whole lot of rupiah.

Others with enough money to pay their mortgage include Sukanto Tanoto, of paper-construction-and-palm-oil fame; Martua Sitorus, another palm-oil magnate; Peter Sondakh, a telecommunications-and-hotels king (what's with the strange combinations?). If palm oil is such a sure path to enormous wealth, no wonder they're cutting down forests with abandon. Sorry, orangutans ...


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