Bill Gates remains the richest American, Buffet suffers $10 billion losses

 Forbes published its annual rich Americans ranking that showed the 400 wealthiest people in the US lost $300 billion of net worth in the past year. The list of wealthiest Americans, released on Wednesday, reports that Warren Buffet suffered the most with losses accounting for $10 billion in net worth as shares of his Berkshire Hathaway dropped.

Meantime, the list of the 10 riches Americans remained unchanged as compared with 2008. Microsoft’s Bill Gates still topped the rankings with a fortune of $50 billion, a $7 billion decrease against the previous year.

He second position was occupied by Buffet with $40 billion and Oracle Corp founder Lawrence Ellison was No. 3, with his fortune unchanged at $27 billion. It should be noted that Ellison was the only person in the rankings who didn’t suffer significant losses.

The wealth estimates were made according to asset values on September 10.

In total the top 10 lost about $40 billion, said Matthew Miller, editor of the Forbes list, in what he called a "bloodbath" of wealth destruction for America's rich and not-so-rich alike. The net worth of all 400 combined fell 19 percent, to $1.27 trillion from $1.57 trillion.

"No one is going to cry for any of these super-rich guys, because even the ones who dropped from $2 billion last year to $100 million still have a very nice lifestyle," Miller said.

But he warned about a trickle-down effect since many of these executives wield economic power, including control over thousands of jobs.

"It really doesn't spell anything good for any of us," he said. "If they're getting poorer, we're likely getting poorer."