The Billionaire’s Club used to be a very exclusive place. Not anymore.
亿万富翁俱乐部不再为少数人专有
For most of us–working for a living and making ends meet–having a billion dollars is hard to imagine. Billionaire J. Paul Getty may have put it best w hen he said,“If you can count your money, you don’t have a billion dollars.”
对我们大部分通过工作讨生活、试图让收支相抵的人来说，很难想像拥有10亿美金的情况。亿万富翁杰保罗·盖蒂可能对此做出了最好的解释，他说：“如果你算得出你有多少钱，你就没有10亿的财富。”
But these days, the Billionaire’s Club is admitting a bunch of new members. Forbes Magazine’s annual survey of the world’s richest people indicates that, in 2003, there were a record 587 billionaires, including such surprises as Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, and the 30-something inventors of the Google search engine.
但是现在，亿万富翁俱乐部正接受一堆新会员加入。《福布斯》杂志对全球最富有的人进行的年度调查指出，2003年，纪录上出现了587位亿万富翁，令人惊讶的上榜者包括哈利·波特的创造者罗琳，以及发明Google搜索引擎的三十来岁的青年。
But, while some things have changed, one thing has stayed the same for the past 10 years. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft is still the world’s richest man, with $90 billion.
虽然有些事情已经变了，但在过去十年中有件事一直没有改变，拥有900亿美元身价的微软创始者比尔·盖茨仍旧是全世界最有钱的人。
Mr. Gates has seen his fortunes rise with the price of Microsoft stock.“He, alone, has more money than the top nine on the list a decade ago,”says financial analyst John Harris.“In fact, his wealth would cover the whole of Manhattan if laid out in $500 bills.”One would think that, with all that money, he could afford a better haircut.
盖茨先生看着他的财富随微软股票的价格上扬。“他一个人在10年前就比前9名还要有钱。”财务分析师约翰·哈利斯说，“事实上，如果把他的财产用500元美钞摊开，可以盖满整个曼哈顿。”一般人会认为，有这么多钱，他完全负担得起剪个好看一点的发型。
So what is Bill doing with all his money? Like other billionaires before him, Bill and his wife Melinda Gates are working hard to give much of the money away to charity. The William H. Gates Foundation provides grants for health, population and education projects worldwide, and the Gates Learning Foundation provides computer training for low-income children. Last year, these two organizations gave away more than $150m.
那么比尔·盖茨到底怎么用他的钱？就如同在他之前出现的亿万富豪，比尔和他的太太美琳达·盖茨很努力地把钱送给慈善机构。威廉·盖茨基金会给全球的健康、人口和教育计划提供资助，而盖茨学习基金会则为低收入户儿童提供计算机训练。去年，这两个基金会给出去的钱超过1.5亿美金。
But does having billions of dollars change people?“Of all the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them,”said Warren Buffet, a billionaire himself.“If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.”
但是拥有数十亿会不会让人改变呢？”对我所知道的所有亿万富翁而言，金钱只会让他们显露出最基本的特质。”身为亿万富翁的华伦·巴菲特这样说，“如果他们在发财之前是个浑球，有了数十亿之后的他们仍旧是浑球。”
