Ridiculous wealth

There's being rich and there's being ludicrously rich. Forbes deals with that latter category in its annual ranking of the world's richest people. There are 946 billionaires on the planet, and their combined wealth is $3.5 trillion. I plowed through the first 200 and came across only six Socal names. They're all the usual suspects: Kirk Kerkorian ($15 billion), Donald Bren ($8.5 billion), Sumner Redstone ($8 billion), Eli Broad ($6 billion), Bradley Hughes ($5.3 billion), and David Geffen ($4.7 billion). (Hughes is the founder of the Public Storage empire.) Microsoft founder Bill Gates ranked No. 1 for the 13th straight year, at $56 billion. In the second spot is Warren Buffett, at a mere $52 billion. Here's the package from Forbes. Below are the top 10. Read 'em and weep.

1. William Gates III, Washington, age 51, net worth $56 billion
2. Warren Buffett, Nebraska, age 76, net worth $52 billion
3. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexico, age 67, net worth $49 billion
4. Ingvar Kamprad and family, Sweden, age 80, net worth $33 billion
5. Lakshmi Mittal, India, age 56, net worth $32 billion
6. Sheldon Adelson, Nevada, age 73, net worth $26.5 billion
7. Bernard Arnault, France, age 58, net worth $26 billion
8. Amancio Ortega, Spain, age 71, net worth $24 billion
9. Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong, age 78, net worth $23 billion
10. David Thomson and family, Canada, age 49, net worth $22 billion