WHAT can aspiring squillionaires learn from the 400 wealthiest Americans as listed in the current issue of Forbes magazine? In the absence of winning the lottery, personal wealth now comes from innovative commercial ideas that force customers to beat a path to your door. And the lack of a third level education is no deterrent. The 63 people on the list who did not have a college degree had a much higher net worth that the college graduates.

So first devise a better mousetrap then start a fabulously successful company - but make sure you retain a hefty portion of the stock. Surging stock markets had a lot to do with the number of billionaires on the list growing to 135, worth a combined $312 billion.

The already filthy rich Bill Gates, co founder of Microsoft, tops the list for the third year in a row, his personal fortune growing $4 billion to a staggering $18.5 billion. For the rest of us there is either the lottery or having a few quid riding on a repeat performance by Frankie Dettori.