Book excerpt: The question is not, 'why is it so hard to get rich', but 'why is it so easy for some people to get rich?' Wealth Secrets of the One Per Cent is an exploration of how people become billionaires. It looks at what we can learn about business from the super-wealthy, from the Ancient World to modern emerging economies, via the American Industrialists, the '90s dotcom boom and other key entrepreneurial moments in history. Global Economic Forecaster Sam Wilkin's surprising conclusion is that despite superficial differences, from Mexican telecoms billionaires to Roman senators, their methods of wealth accumulation have a great deal in common. Behind almost every great fortune is a 'wealth secret'--a moneymaking technique that involves some sort of scheme for defeating the forces of market competition. They're not pretty, but then, who said making a billion was easy?