It's good to be rich. With the $171 he earns every minute, Tiger Woods [ Images ] could buy four dozen of the Nike Platinum golf balls he used to win last year's Masters tournament. He would need less than two minutes to save for his driver of choice, the Nike SasQuatch. By contrast, the median household income in the US is about $43,000, or eight cents per minute. These days, that's barely enough for a gumball.

But Woods is on the poor end of our list of top-earning celebrities. Due in large part to endorsement deals and tournament winnings, he rings in at number six, once bands U2 and the Rolling Stones are removed from the equation. Steven Spielberg [ Images ] tops the list, earning $332 million in 2005, or $632 per minute. It would take him only eight minutes to accumulate enough money for a night at the Mansion at MGM Grand, a Las Vegas [ Images ] hotel, which charges $5,000 per night.

There's bad news for the Hollywood set, however. While celebrities sometimes venture into nine-figure territory, their paychecks don't even come close to the sums earned in the business world. In fact, Spielberg didn't corral that cash directing War of the Worlds or Munich. Last year, DreamWorks, the studio he founded with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, was sold for $1.6 billion. Starting a company, it seems, can be much more lucrative than making a movie.

The titans of technology make more than any producer, director or diva in Hollywood. Microsoft [ Images ] founder Bill Gates [ Images ] is, of course, the richest man in world, with a net worth of $50 billion. If he makes a 7 per cent return on investment, which is the average amount the stock market appreciates each year, he earns $6,659 per minute. That's enough to buy about 16 shares of Google's stock, which might be a smart investment considering Microsoft's shares are languishing below $24.

Actual returns, of course, will vary widely--particularly for billionaires like Gates, who hold a large portion of their wealth in one company's stock. Nevertheless, in our hypothetical world, Gates could save for about four minutes and buy his wife Melinda a $25,000 dress designed by Elie Saab, who frequently clothes Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry [ Images ]. Berry, by the way, makes only $30 per minute, barely enough for a pair of jeans off Old Navy's sale rack.

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Of course, the Gateses prefer more charitable pursuits, and they've received copious attention lately for their philanthropic efforts. Their foundation, which is frequently lauded for its investments in education and antipoverty programs, handed out $2,663 per minute last year. Praiseworthy, to be sure. But at our hypothetical rate of return, Bill and Melinda Gates still make more than twice as much as their foundation spends.

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Fewer than half of the world's ten richest people are American. Indian steel titan Lakshmi Mittal [ Images ], the majority owner of Mittal Steel, earns $3,130 per minute off his $23.5 billion fortune. It would take Mittal four days to accumulate $18.2 million, enough to buy Coakley Cay, a private island in the Bahamas. If he's impatient, however, he could find a quicker route to happiness. In six minutes, he could afford a six-liter bottle of champagne, the Louis Roederer Cristal Brut 1990, which sold at an auction last year for $17,625.

Did we mention it's good to be rich?

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