The same billionaires for Bush are baaaaack, and now they want to profit from health care.
posted by twoleftfeet on Sep 26, 2009 - 15 comments

Billionaires have more grandchildren through their sons than through their daughters, because the status advantage is more reproductively valuable to the sons. Therefore, it would be adaptive for the mothers of their children to bear more sons than daughters. But surely that can't be; mothers can't control the sex of their children. Oh but so it is: billionaires have 60% male children. [more inside]
posted by grobstein on Jan 17, 2009 - 69 comments

Influential billionaires like Carl, Thomas, Kirk, and Warren have been losing their shirts. And it's being felt around the world. [more inside]
posted by gman on Nov 20, 2008 - 65 comments

Moscow is home to the largest number of billionaires and in Russia, there are nearly 100 billionaires. Due to recent economic developments and the drop in oil prices, the oligarchs, who rose to prominence under Gorbachev, have lost a combined total of $200 billion. Help is here.
posted by gman on Oct 30, 2008 - 21 comments

The public shaming of Orange County billionaire Henry Nicholas continues apace. While his financial crimes may not have drawn more than a passing reference, his drug use and other, more unsavory acts, have gotten widespread coverage -- as early as last year. Perhaps, it's because Nicholas was famously involved in supporting tough sentencing laws (his sister was murdered by her boyfriend in 1983.) However, some of the "tough on crime" policies he has backed as recently as a few months ago are said to unfairly worsen the punishment for those who commit crimes much less serious than those for which he was just indicted.
posted by noway on Jun 7, 2008 - 22 comments

"Richard Rainwater made billions by knowing how to profit from a crisis. Now he foresees the biggest one yet". Rainwater discovers peak oil and wants to profit from it. Among other things, "he's thinking about opening a for-profit survivability center". Admittedly, his peak oil obsession goes beyond profiting:

But there may be something more important than making money. This is the first scenario I've seen where I question the survivability of mankind. I don't want the world to wake up one day and say, 'How come some doofus billionaire in Texas made all this money by being aware of this, and why didn't someone tell us?'

posted by samelborp on Dec 13, 2005 - 20 comments

News Flash! Gates loses billions! Yet, he still sits comfortably atop the list of the wealthiest people in the world. Larry Ellison, meanwhile, lost $21 billion, but fell to only #4.

The Billionaire Club now includes 538 members in 46 countries, with an average net worth of $3.2 billion. Is it more disturbing that, for a comparison, the GDP of Afghanistan is a paltry $21 billion (bested by the list's top 5)? Or that the GDP per capita of the U.S. is a relatively microscopic $36,144?
posted by padjet1 on Jun 22, 2001 - 11 comments

Gates, Buffett & Soros unite to fight . . . the estate tax? I think this is a good thing. It's definitely odd.
posted by aflakete on Feb 14, 2001 - 81 comments

So we've got opinions about Bill Gates. But what about billionaire George Soros? He funds, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, various causes in the US, in Europe, and elsewhere. He's a critic of what he sees as the excesses of late capitalism. But does Soros represent a good thing? (More inside...)
posted by snarkout on Dec 27, 2000 - 9 comments