(FORTUNE Magazine) – The very, very rich will never be quite like you and me, but at least the gap isn't growing so fast. The average entrant on FORTUNE's fourth annual listing of the world's billionaires has about $2.6 billion to his, her, or the family's name, exactly what he had last year. Imagine if you parked that pile in nice, safe U.S. Treasury bills yielding about 7.5%. You'd be earning $534,000 every day. There are 182 individuals and families on the list, 25 more than last year, with 44 newcomers and 19 departures. The wealth of those who have appeared both years is up about 7%, but the rate of inflation during the same period was 5%. Let's face it, this is no way to get rich. True, you shouldn't feel too sorry for folks who have their own islands and castles, use Renoirs for wallpaper, and control, in the aggregate, $471.3 billion. Things are tough all over.

It's been especially rough for the royals. The world's richest man is, for the fourth year in a row, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, but his net worth is flat at $25 billion. His oil-rich land is a peaceful 4,600 miles from the inflamed Persian Gulf, however, and his fortunes will improve if oil prices remain high. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who with his family ranks as the second wealthiest, may find that $18 billion cannot protect him or his country from Iraq's war-crazed ruler -- unless Fahd has a lot of help from his friends. One of his staunch allies is Morocco's King Hassan II, who commands $1.3 billion. A markedly Western monarch, Hassan proved his military might clearing Polisario rebels out of the western Sahara in 1984, and his pecuniary skill diversifying the huge Omnium Nord Africain conglomerate into manufacturing, real estate, and services. The ouster of Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Jaber Ahmed Al-Sabah, by invading Iraqi forces severs 234 years of unbroken rule by the Kuwaiti royal family. Sheikh Jaber and his clan may well return, but even if they do not, they won't be forced to drive cabs for a living. The family is worth $4.8 billion, and much of that is tucked in foreign investments. The Al-Sabah are said to earn more on their portfolio than they ever did on oil. The impoverished Saddam Hussein apparently covets Sheikh Jaber's money management office no less than his oil fields. There was turnover at the top in tiny Liechtenstein too. Prince Hans Adam II ascended the throne upon the death of his father, Franz Josef II, who ruled for 51 years. Dad will be a hard act to follow. When he inherited the pocket principality in 1938, it was so poor that he had to sell some family jewels to pay the national debt. Then he hit upon a sure-fire moneymaker -- Liechtenstein has one of the world's lowest corporate tax rates -- and wouldn't you know? Today the country is affluent, industrialized, and home to 1.3 corporations for every inhabitant. With a final say on laws and the power to dissolve parliament, Hans Adam is no Romberg Student Princeling, and he is worth $1.2 billion. They aren't royalty, but in Italy a band of business billionaires spar like Caesars for primacy. Their names include Agnelli, De Benedetti, Berlusconi -- and Barilla, the pastamaker. The average Italian chows down 300 plates of the stuff every year and Barilla pasta is on about a third of them all. W.R. Grace bought the company from the family in 1971 and nearly ran it aground, so Pietro Barilla took it back and nourished the noodlemaker his father started to the point where it controls 19% of the rest of Europe's pasta market. For dessert there's sweets from Michele Ferrero. The confectioner, whose fortune sprang from a creamy, hazelnut-based chocolate substitute his grandfather cooked up after World War II, roams the supermarket aisles to ask shoppers if they like his products. Not surprisingly, profits have doubled in the past six years. No one disputes Japan's economic prowess, but stagnant real estate values and an uncertain stock market in the past few months caused her diffident billionaires to lose more than face. A number of them also shifted their assets into dummy corporations to conceal ownership and avoid taxes. Thus, there are only eight Japanese on the list this year vs. 12 last year. Fortunately, they've always tended to live modestly, confining their extravagances to a taste for French Impressionists. Though he is worth $2.3 billion, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi insists, ''I don't feel at all that I am a man of wealth.'' Hiroshi Teramachi, who makes ball bearings and is worth $1.8 billion, adds, ''I certainly don't feel wealthy. But if people are going to stay confident in you as owner and manager, you have to make the company grow and you have to increase your own assets.'' The world's leading free-market economy still boasts the most billionaires -- 58 in the U.S. vs. 15 in West Germany and nine in Italy. America's largest family fortunes are those named Mars (as in candy), Newhouse (publishing), and Walton (Wal-Mart Stores). But the richest individual in the country is John Werner Kluge, 75, whose Metromedia holdings include Orion Pictures, Ponderosa steakhouses, and cellular telephone systems in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. He has $7 billion all to himself. Microsoft's meteoric stock made a new billionaire out of its co-founder Paul Allen -- he owns 17% of the company -- and tripled Bill Gates's net worth to $3.2 billion. Not bad for two guys who are 37 and 34 respectively. Any consultant will tell you that earning a multiple of your age is a sign you are getting ahead in your field. Other newcomers include Philip Knight of Nike, Tom Monaghan of Domino's Pizza, and the Davis clan of Winn-Dixie Stores. These freshmen billionaires know how to enjoy their stash. Both Allen and Monaghan have fallen prey to the rich man's folly and own sports teams, while Gates and Allen bought matching custom Porsches to zoom around Seattle. Then there's the pizza delivery chain's new headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Domino Farms. Ol' MacDonald never had anything like this: jacuzzis, two radio stations, a petting zoo, and a museum devoted to Frank Lloyd Wright -- eeeyii, eeeyii, ooohh. Slowly but surely, women are joining the ranks of billionaires, as you can see from the list beginning on page 135. Most have married or inherited their booty, but the number of ten-digit fortunes they control is up by 40% over last year's eight. Queen Elizabeth II remains the world's richest woman ($11.7 billion), and the other repeaters include Anne Cox Chambers, Barbara Cox Anthony, Queen Beatrix, Johanna Quant, Estee Lauder, Grete Schickedanz, and Liliane Bettencourt. This year add Germany's Chantal Grundig, whose husband Max left her his electronics fortune; Switzerland's Heidi Horton with $150 million a year from Horton Department Stores; Princess Melinda Ottrubay ! Esterhazy of Austria, who owns some of Europe's most coveted beachfront property; and the glamorous Esther and Alicia Koplovitz, who run Spain's giant Conycon construction company. But a word to would-be billionaires of either sex: Marrying money is still the hardest way to earn it.

BOX: CONTENTS Introduction 98-108 Billionheirs & Billionheiresses 112-126 Managing the Money 129-134 Rankings 135-186 Index 186