The richest person in China is richer than Oprah

The good news is that she is also a woman.

"Paper-recycling tycoon Zhang Yin has become the first woman to top the list of China's richest people, with a fortune of $3.4bn (£1.8bn)"

I started thinking of Heloise, with her frugal hints on multiple uses for things others might throw away. But to think a Chinese woman rose to the top of her country's wealth, with a larger idea about recycling is pretty inspiring to me.

-"Ms Zhang is the 49-year-old founder of Nine Dragons Paper, which buys scrap paper from the US for use."

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"Her wealth rose from $375m last year, when she was 36th in the annual China Rich List, compiled by Hurun Report.
Nine Dragons' shares have almost tripled in value since they were listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Ms Zhang is now the richest self-made woman in the world, ahead of US TV celebrity Oprah Winfrey and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. "

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Hold on, she buys our scrap paper and winds up richer than Oprah & J.K Rowling?

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What were we doing in the meantime?

_

Hat's off to you,Zhang Yin!

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/...

•  step up ladies

  I want the next richest woman to beat Bill Gates.

  by Miss Devore on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 08:59:25 PM PDT

  •  By Having Gates Lose to Her

    We don't need bigger billionaires.

    We need poorer rich people, but more of them, and many, many more middle class people.

    We don't get more and happier, healthier middle class people from billionaires.

    We tried that for 12,000 years. It never worked till FDR showed us where middle classes come from.

    by Gooserock on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:05:10 PM PDT

    •  Bill Gates is a nice guy

      Bill Gates gives more money to charity than any other person in the world. Much goes to causes such as education in poor communities and AIDS research.

      I hate when people rip on Bill Gates without knowing all the information.

      by Mikesco on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:24:16 PM PDT

      •  I don't think he was ripping Bill Gates

        Rather, he was making the point that supporting billionaires isn't the path to a larger and healthier middle-class. Even Gates' good friend Warren Buffett supports this point.

        by rogun on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:41:22 PM PDT

      •  LMAO!!! You didn't say that! Did you?

        "Bill Gates gives more money to charity than any other person in the world."

        LOL!!! Lord Almighty, anyone with his money would give to charity!!! WTF else is he going to do with it? Ha ha.

        I agree with you in that Gates deserves his wealth.

        Nice? Don't know about that but you obviously do so I'll demit to your opinion.

        The usual businessman is a greedy little guy that makes his money by cutting prices. Price competition is about all he knows and contributes as he grabs the biggest piece of pie he can. He adds little value to the great scope of things.

        Bill Gates on the other hand invented a whole new pie, took the slice he wanted and allowed others to share in the rest.

        "all the information."? Yeah, I'll bet.

        by 0hio on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:25:06 PM PDT

    •  in this instance

      I am looking at it from the POV, that much wealth is made from new technology, and that world is still ruled by males.

      so the congrats are to a woman who took recycling to a higher power.

      and frankly, I don't hate Oprah, Gates, or Rowling for being rich.

      cheney--that's another story.

      by Miss Devore on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:26:45 PM PDT

    •  You must understand

      this lady is on a list.

      The richest person in China is so rich, this person (it may be male, it may be female - don't know who's head of the family today) can afford not to be on any one's list. Don't be fooled for one minute into thinking that Mao was able to confiscate all of the wealth that the truly rich of China amassed over 4 millenia. It just stepped out for a while. Maybe to Portugal?

      Where do you think China got its capital once it moved back to a market system from centralized control? Why do you think it moved back to a market system?

      Bill Gates is peanuts compared to some of the families that have controlled tea, silk, spice, opium, soy sauce, and the Chinese ruling elite for almost 4000 years.

      by Serendipity on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:38:35 PM PDT

      •  Interesting

        I'd be more interesting in learning about this, if you have any links or could point me in the right direction? I've always suspected that the richest people in the world weren't on any list, but I've never seen any hard evidence to support that suspicion. Do you have some?

        by rogun on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:48:31 PM PDT

        •  I'd have to kill you if I told you.

          by Serendipity on Wed Oct 18, 2006 at 01:29:47 PM PDT

•  Wow, US paper? And when you add the cost of

  shipping the stuff, geez, the bind boggles.

  If this is the case howcome it hasn't affected the trade deficit?

  by AntKat on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:00:22 PM PDT

  •  I'm guessing the $6000 TVs coming in

    don't fully offset the $6 of paper going out.

    by johnsonwax on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:21:08 PM PDT

  •  I would bet that the low cost of labor in China

    easily makes up for the shipping costs and is also probably the key to her business.

    by rogun on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:50:14 PM PDT

  •  no wonder

    the recycled paper that is made into high R-value fire resistant home insulation at home depot is so expensive, most of it is shipped to china

    by FreeTradeIsYourEpitaph on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:12:12 PM PDT

•  So *that's* where....

  ...all the recycled paper is going! :)  And to think of all the fossil fuels burnt to send the paper there (wonder why it can't be recycled here?  Actually, probably a good chunk is recycled stateside, but I have no idea - sorry, major digression and stochastic ramble).

  by chingchongchinaman on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:00:48 PM PDT

  •  Stochastic Ramble

    I think that was the title of an old Jack Teagarden song.

    by hrh on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:40:15 PM PDT

    •  she who quotes Jack Teagarden songs

      probably should be the richest woman in the world.

      by Miss Devore on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:44:15 PM PDT

      •  I have my own cultural island

        up here in the mountains of New Hampshire.  You're welcome to come and visit. We're like the Idaho survivalists, except instead of guns, we have books, art and music.

        by hrh on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:23:53 PM PDT

•  Apparently,

  we've been wasting paper.

  What's sad is that, not only does she make money from our trash, but she can ship it 6,000 miles and still make money from our trash. Granted, the sum total of empty shipping containers going from LA to Beijing must be comparable to the US population, but still, so much for American ingenuity...

  by johnsonwax on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:17:29 PM PDT

•  Yes, hats off to her.

  We really need to step up.  Especially after I just read Bob Herbert's column today regarding why aren't we shocked, well, he writes...

  We’re all implicated...to the wider society’s casual willingness to dehumanize women and girls, to see them first and foremost as sexual vessels — objects — and never, ever as the equals of men.

  So it was very nice to read this diary right afterwards. Do step up, women!

  I've also heard of a Chinese woman who made millions in Southern CA selling old computer monitors to China.  I guess recycling can be a good thing financially.

  by Dianna on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:17:54 PM PDT

•  Cool!

  Another article with a photo here

  Born in a soldier's family in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Zhang was the eldest sister to seven children. She went to Hong Kong in 1985 and started her career in waste paper trading with 30,000 yuan.

  Zhang defied financial hardships, cheating business partners and intimidation from local mafia to build up her wealth in the subsequent five years before moving to the United States with her husband in February 1990 to pursue her dream of becoming the "empress of waste paper".

  by pontificator on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:18:22 PM PDT

•  Let's tone down the celebrating

  The other side of this story is the spectacular growth in inequality in China. They are developing along the US-preferred model.

  China has the highest rate of female suicide in the world, and its rural rate is three times that of the cities.

  ...

  Call it China's Gilded Age of inequality. In 2003 average peasant yearly income was $317; the monthly wages of factory workers ranged between $62 and $100, which was only marginally higher than in 1993, although the economy grew by 10 percent annually during the same period.

  ...

  According to a report by the China Rights Forum, the class that can afford such indulgences was not created through exceptional skill or merit; rather, 90 percent of China's 20,000 richest people are related to senior government or Communist Party officials at the center of political power and have benefited corruptly from these connections. Rural officials have found their own way to get rich by seizing land from peasants with minimal compensation and selling it at high prices to developers who build highrise apartments, factories and shopping malls. If discovered, corrupt officials evade punishment by escaping with their loot to foreign countries such as the United States, Canada and Thailand.

  ...

  The richest people in China are the relatives of the very top officials who used their position to pass laws transforming state-owned industries into stockholding companies, and then appointed family members as managers. In this way the children of top party officials--China's new "princelings"--took over China's most strategic and profitable industries: banking, transportation, power generation, natural resources, media and weapons. Once in management positions, they got loans from government-controlled banks, acquired foreign partners and listed their companies on Hong Kong or New York stock exchanges to raise more capital. The princelings enriched themselves each step of the way--not only as major shareholders of the companies but also from the kickbacks they got by awarding contracts to foreign firms. To call this "socialism with Chinese characteristics" is a farce. One veteran China watcher has defined it as "high-tech feudalism with Chinese characteristics."

  -- Peter Kwong, in The Nation, Sept 14, 2006

  by tiggers thotful spot on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:23:06 PM PDT

  •  in no way is this meant

    as an endorsement of the serious inequalities in China.

    but do you know that this particular woman is part of:

    "The richest people in China are the relatives of the very top officials who used their position to pass laws transforming state-owned industries into stockholding companies"

    ?

    by Miss Devore on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:33:24 PM PDT

    •  no I don't know that

      the article I was quoting didn't list wealthy individuals.

      She no longer even lives in China, judging from the other (sketchy) biographical details given here.

      by tiggers thotful spot on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:50:02 PM PDT

•  I'm just glad she

  made her fortune in recylced paper.  Who'da thunk?

  by ljm on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:33:28 PM PDT

  •  that's pretty much

    where I'm coming from. a rich recyler is a good sign, to me.

    by Miss Devore on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:41:30 PM PDT

    •  Great diary! The Chinese and Japanese

      respect a thing known as value. As a matter of fact, they have over 50 definitions re value whereas we wonderfully gifted Americans have 4 or 5 working definitions.

      Ahhh, to value! Everything in life, as we know it to be, contains value. Value is acknowledged by usage and whenever such usage is singular in purpose value is accorded a one dimemsional respect while the search for true value is stopped.

      Reminds me of the story about the urinal walls and all of the unseeing eyes that never saw the profits to be made. Hmmmm, and we whine about our lack of opportunity.

      by 0hio on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:14:13 PM PDT

•  Paved with hard damned work n/t

  by AllisonInSeattle on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 11:21:17 PM PDT

•  We were asleep at the wheel eh?

  by abbeysbooks on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 04:02:38 AM PDT