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It's that time of year again when Forbes takes a look at the poorest
400 Americans by net worth  as
of September 30th, 2000. Once again the list is dominated by
internet investors. It also took a lot less this year to make
the list with Greg Franks at #400 with a -$26,000,000 net worth. Several
names are off the list this year as bankruptcies cleared off a lot
of last year's top contenders. On this year's list there were
217 internet stock speculators, 87 compulsive gamblers, 54 drug users,
28 overclockers and 4 compulsive shoppers. We'll profile the
top 3 poorest Americans starting with William Draper II:
William Draper II: -$1.34 billion William
didn't even make the list last year but, his bet on Priceline at
the beginning of March paid off big when Priceline's stock plummeted
at the end of September. His highly leveraged bet lost $235,000,000. "It
probably wasn't a good idea to take that 14th mortgage out on the
house, but I had a really good feeling about Priceline and the
chart looked good," said Draper. Draper's other picks
were just as fortuitous and catapulted him to the top of the list. William
spends most of his time contemplating whether bankruptcy or suicide
is a more preferable solution.
Scott Ellis: -$894 million - Scott
parlayed a gambling and Beanie Baby addiction to make it to #2
on this year's list. "I owe a lot of people a lot of
money, most of them not so nice people," said Scott. When
Scott isn't running from his bookie he's on the prowl for the latest
Beanie Babies on eBay.
Bernie and Evelyn Johnson: -$638 million -
Another internet stock winner is Sanitation Engineer Bernie Johnson.
His big bets on Kana Communications and CDnow paid off big to make
it to #3 on this year's list. Bernie is talking to lawyers
about declaring bankruptcy, and wishes those "damn credit
card companies" would stop calling him about getting paid. It
also helped that Bernie's wife Evelyn is a compulsive shopper, "It's
really easy to get credit these days. I have over 164 platinum
cards that are maxed out!"
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