Top UK billionaires considerably richer than Chinese ones ... for now A rundown of the richest people in China has revealed that the very wealthiest British billionaires collectively boast more cash than their counterparts in the People's Republic. The top ten wealthiest Chinese citizens are worth a total of £69.31billion ($109.3billion), according to an annual analysis by the Hurun Research …
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This post has been deleted by its author
Did I misread something?
The subtitle reads
However, note that we didn't say British billionaires there
and while headline does indeed avoid saying British, the first paragraph undoes this with:
A rundown of the richest people in China has revealed that the very wealthiest British billionaires collectively boast more cash than their counterparts in the People's Republic.
So, are the "British" billionaires cohort more cash-rich than the Chinese ones or just the UK billionaire cohort?
this is in reference to the numerical value "British billion", which is IMHO much more logical and sensible than the system adopted in the 70's, as you only add a new description when you need it, not just every three 0's
a billion is 1,000,000,000
a british billion is 1,000,000,000,000 - ie you have 1 hundred thousand million before going to the billion.
I would argue that it is necessary to give a new name after every three 0s. In the same manner as a we have in IT Mega, Giga, Terra, Peta, Exa etc ....
I think is easier to think in terms of "2.7 Giga" than it is to think about "two thousand seven hundred Megas", or worse, "two thousand seven hundred million bytes" or even worse "twenty one thousand six hundred million bits". And this is only at the Gigabyte level....( although that is roughly where the Billionaires are for the moment)
it is also far easier to write.....
You are describing the difference between short scale and long scale. Short scale, a billion is a 1000 millions, in long scale a billion is a million millions.
Anyway, it's funny that you call it a "British billion", since historically long scale has been used by the French, the Spanish, the Dutch and the Portuguese (and hence, their colonies), who all call 10⁹ a "millard" (miljard/milhar/millardo) and 10¹² a billion. The British use the short scale.
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