The 400 Richest Americans

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Carlos Slim remains number one on Forbes billionaires list

Mexico's Carlos Slim remained the world's richest man for the third year in a row with a $69 billion fortune on the Forbes billionaire list. Slim was down $5 billion compared to last year.

Bill Gates of Microsoft came in second at $61 billion, up $5 billion for the year.

Donald Trump Claims Independence

Donald Trump claims he is worth $7 billion.

Forbes says it is more like $2.9 billion (#128 on the Forbes 400 list).

Now Donald Trump is no longer a registered Republican in the state of New York. He is now a registered independent.

When asked if this is an opening for a potential run for the White House, his spokesman said no. The Donald fully expects to endorse a GOP candidate.

Next Class Warfare Target: The Waltons

Just in time for the 2011 Holiday Season, we have another opportunity to ponder more class inequality questions.

This time courtesy of Jeffrey Mark Goldberg, activist writer of The Atlantic.

Jeff, after spending some time reading some old issues of Forbes magazine, points out that six members of the Walton family (the original owners of WalMart) have more wealth than the bottom 30 % of Americans. Shocking. Is this still legal in America?

In 2007, according to the labor economist Sylvia Allegretto, the six Walton family members on the Forbes 400 had a net worth equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans. bottom 30 percent of all Americans. The Waltons are now collectively worth about $93 billion, according to Forbes.

So, what is the point here, Jeffrey?

Well, once again class, because next year is a presidential election year, we will hear and read this refrain over and over again.

Also, it is now so very, very cool to compare 99% with 1%. Statistically or politically.

If you have the time to research who Jeffrey Mark Goldberg exactly is (on Wikipedia, for instance), you'll find:

In 2007, he was hired by David G. Bradley to write for The Atlantic. Bradley had tried to convince Goldberg to come work for The Atlantic for nearly two years, and was finally successful after renting ponies for Goldberg's children

So there we have it. We all have our price. For some it is millions or billions. For Jeffrey Mark Goldberg, we  discover he can be bribed with ponies.

Oh, and BTW, it looks as if Walmart has some good values on flat-screen televisions this week.

Forbes Likes (+1) HP

The Think Billion$ blog, once again, is with or ahead of the curve with its thinking on HP (NYSE: HPQ), the Palo Alto, California computer company.

Forever remaining skeptical on most business stories from The Economist, Think Billion$ thought the socialist business magazine went a little over the top with its recent denouncement of Meg Whitman (The Economist Hates both Meg Whitman and HP).

Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes and Silicon Valley insider, understands the dynamics of HP differently (Whitman Is Not Jobs, But HP Is a Buy. Forbes, December 19, 2011, p. 40):

"Even if you remain skeptical about Whitman, HP is a buy on the price. Consider that IBM and HP have comparable revenue numbers, yet IBM is worth $220 billion. Warren Buffett plopped $10.7 billion into IBM at this valuation. HP is worth $56 billion. It's dirt cheap. For all of HP's problems, the company still generates about $10 billion a year in free cash flow. A modest multiplier of ten times cash flow would get HP to $100 billion."

The Think Billions blog continues to wish Meg Whitman well at HP.

Mark Zuckerberg gets richer and Facebook celebrates by crashing

Mark Zuckerberg moved up the list on the Forbes Richest Americans list this week.

Zuckerberg profile

Since timing is a big part of life and other things, Facebook celebrated by crashing several times this week.

Techcrunch:::Facebook Gives A Post-Mortem On Worst Downtime In Four Years


Mashable:::Facebook Engineer Explains “Worst Outage in Over Four Years”

Bill Gates is the richest American

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp., remains the richest American with estimated assets of $54 billion, according to Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the 400 wealthiest Americans.

Warren Buffett, the chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., ranked second in the U.S. with $45 billion. Gates, 54, and Buffett, 80, were Nos. 1 and 2 last year.


Bloomberg article

India remains billionaire friendly

India’s billionaire list doubles


Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani is once again the wealthiest person in India. The net worth of the promoter of the largest listed Indian company is put at $32 billion, an increase of 54 per cent from nearly $21 billion last year, according to a Forbes report.

“Trailing behind him are Lakshmi Mittal (Arcelor Mittal) with a net worth of $30 billion, up 46 per cent from $20.5 billion, and Mukesh’s estranged brother, Anil Ambani, whose net worth of $17.5 billion, 40 per cent, higher than before, put him in third place,” it said. A rebounding stock market that gained two-thirds in the past year and an economy growing at 6 per cent have boosted the net worth of India's richest people. The combined net worth of India’s 100 richest people is $276 billion, almost a quarter of the country’s GDP.

“Last year, there were only 27 billionaires on the India Rich List. This year, the number has almost doubled to 52 — just two short of what India had at the peak of the stock market boom in 2007,” according to the Forbes report.

article

Bill Gates remains king of the billionaires

The winner, for the 16th straight year, as the richest man in the U.S.A. is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Congratulations, once gain, Bill.

Warren Buffett, second-richest, dropped $10 billion over the last from his personal balance sheet as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell 20% in 12 months. He is now worth just $40 billion.

Rounding out the top 10 on The Forbes 400: Oracle founder Larry Ellison ($27 billion); Wal-Mart heirs Christy Walton ($21.5 billion), Jim C. Walton ($19.6 billion), Alice Walton ($19.3 billion), and S. Robson Walton ($19 billion); media maven Michael Bloomberg ($17.5 billion) and energy titans Charles and David Koch ($16 billion each).

Football's Billionaires

Read all about Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys) and & friends and how they make and increase their respective net worth's in the pursuit of football and monetary excellence. Jerry Jones' football ROI??? (Return on investment net of debt): 865%.

Go. Fight. Win!



read::: Forbes article

Harvard: #1 in billionaire alums

The Top Billionaire Universities

No. 1 Harvard University

Number of billionaire alumni: 54

Harvard has churned out more 10-figure titans than any other school on the planet (counting both undergraduate and graduate degrees). The school's roster of billionaire alumni includes Michael Bloomberg, Sumner Redstone, David Rockefeller, Sr. and William Randolph Hearst III.

No. 2 Stanford University

Number of billionaire alumni: 25
Stanford has the second-highest number of billionaire grads in the world, including Charles Schwab. Still, the Harvard of the West is probably better known for its billionaire dropouts. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page earned master's degrees in computer science from Stanford before leaving Stanford doctorate programs to start the famously profitable search engine. Another (very rich) quitter: Microsoft Chief Exec Steve Ballmer.

No. 3 University of Pennsylvania

Number of billionaire alumni: 18
Early last year, U. Penn had 27 billionaire graduates, thanks to its famous business school, Wharton. But the financial meltdown last year shaved off almost a third of that list, including hedge fund tycoon Peter Briger Jr. and money maven Marc Rowan. Amongst the school's remaining billionaire grads: Ronald and Leonard Lauder, and Michael Milken.

No. 4 Columbia University (tie)

Number of billionaire alumni: 16
Amongst Columbia's grads is affable billionaire Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest man. While studying in New York (class of 1951), the Berkshire Hathaway chief learned from value-investing legend Benjamin Graham. Other rich alum: Wal-Mart Chairman S. Robson Walton and Henry Kravis.

No. 4 Yale University (tie)

Number of billionaire alumni: 16
Yale is alma mater to a slew of billionaire clans, including the Mars chocolate fortune (Forrest Mars Jr. and John Mars) and Cargill agricultural fortune (Cargill MacMillan Jr. and Whitney MacMillan). Investor Eddie Lampert and Blackstone Group co-founder Stephen Schwarzman also graduated from Yale; both were members of the infamous secret society Skull & Bones.

Forbes article

Copyrighted, Forbes.com. All rights reserved.

Casino billionaires crap out in Las Vegas

The casino empires are still in place for Nevada gaming moguls Sheldon Adelson and Kirk Kerkorian.

However, that doesn't mean both billionaires are going to have a Merry Christmas.

Forbes magazine has placed both Adelson and Kerkorian at number one and number four, respectively, on their list of America's Biggest Billionaire Losers Of 2008.

The Year of the Rat takes a bite from China's billionaires

The Year of the Rat has been challenging for China's billionaires as well.

According to Forbes: "the combined net worth of the 400 richest [Chinese] dropped to $173 billion from $288 billion."

Liu Yongxing, president of East Hope Group, is now number one in China as his wealth has risen from $0.6 billion to $3 billion.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo billionaire, tells both Microsoft and his own shareholders to "get lost!!!"

Jerry Yang, of Los Altos, CA is 38 years old, worth $1.9 billion (according to Forbes) and is the 261st richest person in the United States of America.

This weekend he has told both Microsoft and his own shareholders to "get lost!!!"

As the whole world now knows, Microsoft has abandoned the Yahoo bid after sides can't agree on acceptable sales price

SEATTLE (AP) -- Microsoft says it's dropping its three-month-old bid to buy Yahoo because the two sides can't agree on an acceptable sale price.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer says in a letter sent to Yahoo on Saturday that the software maker was willing to pay $47.5 billion for Yahoo. That's $33 per share.

Ballmer says Yahoo insisted that Microsoft pay at least $53 billion. That's $37 per share.

We, think this is absolutely insane. Jerry Yang is taking an anti-capitalistic, anti-shareholder approach to this proposed buyout. He clearly believes in a eastern Asian philosophy that corporations are made for its employees, not the shareholders. This is very anti-Think Billion$ as well, since Jerry clearly believes that he should be the billionaire and not anybody else. Good luck Jerr. Good luck in managing investor lawsuits in the upcoming months.


Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang on hot seat after rebuffing Microsoft's $47.5 ...
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE , AP SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Jerry Yang has gotten what he wanted:

Forbes: Who wants to party like a billionare?

Party Like A Billionaire

Who wants to party like a rock star when you can party like a billionaire? That is if you are lucky enough to get invited to one of their blow-out bashes.


Read::: Forbes

Billionaire Nelson Peltz acquires 3% stake in Kraft

Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz has acquired 3% of Kraft (NYSE: KFT). According to news reports he will ask the company to sell Post Cereals and the Maxwell House coffee brand.

Mr. Peltz has risen to #278 on the Forbes Wealth List. Peltz is one of the kings of the leveraged buyout business and is considered an activist investor.

In 1997, Peltz paid $300 million for Snapple in 1997 and flipped it three years later for five times that. Recently, he purchased a stake in Heinz (NYSE: HNZ).

Top 9 Forbes Billionaire Videos

A look at the Top 9 Forbes Billionaire Videos

Rags To Riches Billionaires
(222 sec.) Behind the stunning success of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

Meet The 10 Hottest Heiresses
(90 sec.) Where Paris Hilton, Ivanka Trump and Nicky Hilton landed on the list.

Inside The Billionaire Club
(120 sec.) A VIP look at Italian businessman Flavio Briatore's exclusive Sardinian nightclub.

Best Billionaire Cars
(300 sec.) What Buffett and company are driving.

Eligible Billionaires
(280 sec.) There are more billionaires on Earth than ever before.

Billionaire Homes
(250 sec.) Where the billionaires eat and sleep.

Ex-Billionaire Bad Boy
(270 sec.)The latest on last year's cover boy Calvin Ayre.

Homes Of The Billionaires
(120 Sec.)The very richest can buy the very nicest houses.

Thor Bjorgolfsson: Iceland's First Billionaire
(200 Sec.)The magnate has caused quite a stir by building an empire in a country best known for its egalitarian philosophy.

The Top 20 (Forbe$ 2007)

William Gates III

Warren Buffett

Carlos Slim Helú

Ingvar Kamprad

Lakshmi Mittal

Sheldon Adelson

Bernard Arnault

Amancio Ortega

Li Ka-shing

David Thomson

Larry Ellison

Liliane Bettencourt

Prince Alwaleed

Mukesh Ambani

Karl Albrecht

Roman Abramovich

Stefan Persson

Anil Ambani

Paul Allen

Theo Albrecht