One month ago, IMF said there will be no growth in 2009. Now, they updated their prognosis and they see a contraction of the world economy by 0.5% - 1%.
I guess someone should start trying to guess what the IMF prognosis in April will be so that we can have a prognosis of the prognosis… 
Bill Gates is again the richest man in the world. According to Forbes, he surpassed Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim (these two were richer than Gates a year ago). The number of billionaires in the world decreased to 793 from 1125.
Here is the Forbes top 20:
1. Bill Gates: 40B$ - Microsoft, United States
2. Warren Buffett: 37B$ - Berkshire Hathaway, United States
3. Carlos Slim: 35B$ - Telecoms, Mexico
4. Lawrence Ellison; 22,5B$ - Oracle, United States
5. Ingvar Kamprad: 22B$ - Ikea, Sweden
6. Karl Albrecht: 21,5B$ - Aldi, Germany
7. Mukesh Ambani: 19,5B$ - Petrochemicals, India
8. Lakshmi Mittal: 19,3B$ - Mittal Steel, India
9. Theo Albrecht: 18,8B$ - Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Germany
10. Amancio Ortega: 18,3B$ - Zara, Spain
11. Jim Walton: 17,8B$ - Wal-Mart, United States
12. Alice Walton: 17,6B$ - Wal-Mart, United States
12. Christy Walton: 17,6B$ - Wal-Mart, United States
12. S. Robson Walton: 17,6B$ - Wal-Mart, United States
15. Bernard Arnault: 16,5B$ - LVMH, France
16. Li Ka-Shing: 16,2B$ - Diverse, Hong Kong
17. Michael Bloomberg: 16B$ - Bloomberg, United States
18. Stefan Persson: 14,5B$ - Hennes & Mauritz, Sweden
19. Charles Koch: 14B$ - Koch Industries, United States
20. David Koch: 14B$ - Koch Industries, United States
Japan follows Taiwan’s examples and decides to give each citizen 12000 JPY to spend in order to save the economy. This means each Japanese will get more than 120 USD.
The total value of the plan is about 20 billion USD. Is this a sign that the Taiwanese plan might have actually worked?