World's Richest Man:

When I was young, GM was worth more than the gross domestic product of most of the countries of the world, ranking fourth after the U.S., Britain, and the U.S.S.R. Both GM and the U.S.S.R. have fallen on hard times since those heady days in the sixties when muscle cars and muscular missiles seemed to rule the future.

Now days, a company named after a pioneer who carried seeds in his pockets and scattered them around Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois knocks a lot of countries out of the park in comparison to dollar value. (Apple is worth more than Sweden's gross national product.)

And who would have seen this coming:  A Mexican named Carlos Slim is the world's richest man, possessing something more than $63 billion. No, rednecks, he's not a drug lord or a coyote. Carlos Slim Helu made most of his money off the cell phone business. There's that pocket connection again.