Forbes shows how much it hates America by not naming an American as the world’s richest man, for the first time in sis hundred years or something. This year’s champion is Mexican Monopolist Carlos Slim, with $53.5b to his name, with Gates and Buffett taking silver and bronze, respectively.

How could this have happened, you ask, between chants of U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A, and bites of freedom fries off of your red white and blue paper plate? It would seem that Carlos has mastered the first rule of being wealthy: keep your money. Gates and Buffett have both given away literally billions of dollars to various charities; Slim has…not so much.

Also, owning pretty much everything in Mexico of any value probably helps, too. He owns Telmex, which is Mexico’s version of a pre-breakup Ma Bell, which means he controls roughly 85% of the nation’s landlines. Wait, people still have those? I thought everyone used cell phones now – Slim owns Telcel, which provides cellular service to over 75% of Mexicans.  Telmex also is Mexico’s largest internet service provider, with rates that are not ridiculously high only if this is still 1998.

On top of that, Slim owns Sears’ and Saks’ entire operations in Mexico, a few banks, and possibly a kidney farm. In other words, it would not make sense for him not to be the richest man in the world, because he owns an entire country.

Alyx and I also made the list this year, coming in at # 4,724,688,213 and 4,724,688,217, respectively. Our goal is to break into the top 4 billion.