“They print a green paper and write on it $100 or $500 and circulate it among the people in the world to buy goods, without those people realizing it,” he said in a recent speech. Minor correction: the last $500 US bill was printed in 1945. The largest US banknote now is $100. Ahmadi-nejad was criticizing what the US Federal Reserve System calls “quantitative easing,” under which it buys up US Treasury securities to attack deflation fears. Quantitative easing is controversial and is sometimes maligned as issuing money without backing. Ahmadi-nejad took that literally. But there are no bills issued in quantitative easing; it’s just a debt purchase by the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, The quantitative easing program ended June 30. In that same speech, Ahmadi-nejad said the world’s major powers are corrupt. He said, “There are two individuals with wealth of $500 billion and $2 trillion, which is the result of plundering nations.” He did not name those two people. According to Forbes magazine, which compiles an annual list of the world’s wealthiest people, no individual or family has the kind of money Ahmadi-nejad talked about. The world’s richest man is Carlos Slim (photo), a Mexican telecoms operator, worth $74 billion, followed distantly by Americans Bill Gates ($56 billion) and Warren Buffet ($50 billion).