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The losses at Oprah Winfrey's stumbling cable channel are approaching a staggering $330 million, according to a report. And now industry insiders are predicting that the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) will not be able to survive another year if it does not find a hit show and make a dramatic turnaround. Discovery, which partnered 50-50 with Winfrey to launch the network and has been underwriting its costs, has invested nearly $600 million in it since 2008, according to a report in Businessweek magazine over the weekend. But since it started on the air in January 2011, "OWN may have lost...

Well, this should give Forbes—known for their annual "rich lists"—a run for their money. Last night, Bloomberg released the "Bloomberg Billionaires Index," the first daily global ranking of the richest people in the world as part of their coverage of wealth. The index is available here, and its most noticeable characteristic is that it is built to change daily depending on stock fluctuations and economic/company news. From the methodology— The index is a dynamic measure of the world’s wealthy based on changes in markets, the economy and Bloomberg reporting. Each net-worth figure is updated every business day at 5:30 p.m....

In an interview im Miami with the Hispanic journalist, Jorge Ramos of Univision, who asked him what he was worth, Mitt Romney claimed he is worth between $150 million to 200 million dollars. http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2012/01/mitt-romney-says-net-worth-about-million/QYUE2XtKi7rrMubEGYrnwL/index.html Romney is the founding CEO of Bain Capital, one of the largest private equity firms in the world. In a documentary that Newt Gingrich's PAC ran in South Carolina, the value of Bain was put at $65 billion dollars. Founding CEOs usually retain ownership of a large number of shares in the firms that they founded. For example, Microsoft is worth $219 billion, and Bill Gates...

Smart Company has been keeping an eye on Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart, and it predicted last year that she might well end up being the world's richest person someday. If she keeps having weeks like this one, don't count her out. Her wealth doubled from $10 billion to $20 billion, according to the website, thanks to a South Korean company buying a stake in one of her mines.

Last week, I discussed how Occupy protesters are being directly aided by the mainstream media and indirectly aided by White House stimulus money, as well as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's and even Vice President Joe Biden's households. I also detailed how the mainstream media are accelerating their progressive blitz not only to hasten the second coming, or election, of President Barack Obama but also to help him and other progressives in reaching their final goal of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America." I believe the MSM are also bent to coronate a particular GOP candidate whom they feel...

Progressives are on the move once more. Wisconsin lit the spark, as workers, students, teachers and farmers occupied the state’s capitol in February and launched recall elections that sobered conservative Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies. Occupy Wall Street turned that spark into a conflagration that swept the nation. Last week, in Ohio and Maine and even Mississippi, voters overwhelmingly rejected efforts to trample worker rights, constrict the right to vote and roll back women’s rights. These electoral victories have led pundits to wonder whether Occupy Wall Street will imitate the Tea Party and stand candidates for office....

Up to 40 million Chinese people still live in caves. That's more than the populations of Texas and Illinois, combined. In fairness, a fraction of these caves are apparently pretty nice, complete with electricity and well-compacted dirt floors. But that's grading on a curve because, well, they're still caves. Meanwhile, 21 million Chinese live below what the Communist Party calls the "absolute poverty" line. That sounds pretty good if you have in mind our poverty line, which is just under $11,000 per year for an individual and roughly $22,000 for a family of four. The absolute poverty rate in China...

Tonight we learned of the passing of Apple magnate Steve Jobs… a mega-entrepreneur and developer of a myriad of useful and fun products, concepts and gadgets. Some argue he ranks among such greats as Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and Henry Ford in his contributions to the lives of us all. But we must also remind ourselves he was also a mega-billionaire, and as such (taking account my “progressive” President’s recent arguments) we must also ask did Steve Jobs pay his “fair share”, and maybe since he was a billionaire… we should just hate him?

Link only - Questions Raised After DOE Hides Costs Of Energy Projects Each project is listed in detail on the DOE's website, but the costs were recently taken down.

Not the White House, nor the Obama 2012 campaign, nor Democratic National Committee had any immediate comment Tuesday when contacted by ABC News and asked about comments made by Koch referring to the 2012 campaign as a repeat of the Iraq War. “We have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we’ve got in the next 18 months,” Koch said in comments at a private gathering in Colorado in June, first reported by the progressive Brad Blog and Mother Jones Magazine. ”For the life or death of this country.” ADD Philip Ellender, President and COO, Government and Public...

Pelsoi: GOP wants to ‘Destroy Government’, Wonders 'Do Their Children Breathe Air?’ Friday, September 02, 2011 By Eric Scheiner (CNSNews.com) - During a Democratic fundraising event in San Francisco late last month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D- Calif.) declared Republicans are ‘hijacking’ the deficit issue in order to ‘destroy the public space’ and wondered aloud “Do their children breathe air?” An audience member recorded Pelosi’s address at the August 21, 2011 fundraiser where the California Democrat attacked Republicans on the deficit. “The Republicans right now are using the idea of deficit reduction as an excuse, they’re hijacking an idea...

NBC is reporting on yet another green scheme going belly-up and this one is a big one. Scott McGrew reports: Solyndra, a major manufacturer of solar technology in Fremont, has shut its doors, according to employees at the campus. "I was told by a security guard to get my [stuff] and leave," one employee said. The company employs a little more than 1,000 employees worldwide, according to its website. Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs. The President visited the facility in May of last year and said "it...

Warren Buffett, the billionaire head of Berkshire Hathaway and third richest person in the world, has called repeatedly for increasing taxes on wealthy Americans to help reduce the nation’s deficit. So last week, GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann called on Buffett to put his money where his mouth is. “Mr. Buffett, write a big check today,” Bachmann said on the campaign trail. “There’s nothing you have to wait for.” Bachmann is right: Donations to the federal government can be dropped in mailboxes and sent to a West Virginia post office box, or they can be submitted online at http://www.pay.gov.

The phenomenon of leftist billionaires funding anti-capitalist activism seems on the surface to be a contradiction. How could those who should understand the way individual freedom and initiative creates wealth with the power to do good seek the destruction of the system that produces this wealth? The answer is a complex one, although for those who inherited wealth, rather than making their own fortune, guilt clearly plays a role. This seems to be the case with billionaire former sports mogul George Gund III. He used to own the San Jose Sharks and Cleveland Cavaliers. Today he’s the co-founder of two...

Haim Saban, a billionaire Israeli-American and a long-time donor to the Democrats, announced this week that he will not be donating to President Barack Obama’s re-election effort. In an exclusive interview with CNBC’s Michelle Caruso on Tuesday, Saban said he does not plan to donate to President Obama as he has other Democrats. “President Obama has raised so much money and will raise so much money through the Internet, more than anybody before him,” he said. “And he frankly doesn’t, I believe, need any of my donations.” Saban continued, “Will I donate if I am solicited? I will donate. But...

Is William Shatner officially a billionaire? He may be, thanks to Priceline.com. Quietly PCLN shares have surged to yet another record high. They're up nearly $90 bucks this year alone and are closing in on $500. When Captain Kirk .. er, Shatner .. became Priceline's pitchman more than a decade ago, he smartly (or desperately) decided to be paid in stock. After a brief run during the tech boom Priceline shares went into the dump, bottoming out below $2. Then the run began. While we don't know how many shares or options Shatner was given, or if he has held...

"The Queen of Mistresses: Meet the unlikely heroine whose lovers made her a billionaire - and who she repaid by landing them in jail" At the gilded gates of a colonial mansion in China's seaside city of Qingdao, giggling young couples pose for snapshots, craning their necks to peer in at the sumptuous grounds and gossip about the scandalous liaisons of the female billionaire who lived there. 'I think she's amazing,' says 24-year-old legal secretary Yan Lili, who made a trip after reading Li Wei's story on the internet. 'She has proved that women can have real power in China...

FCC bending the rules for obama's internet service. Throw your GPS's in the trash.

It’s a very subtle ploy, that statement, ”already making more money than most will earn in a lifetime.” Does it make you feel good? Glad for those billionaires, and proud of their enterprenurial spirit? Or does it make you feel slightly envious that these young kids will make more than you’ll ever see in your life? Yeah, me too. The ongoing repetition (only slightly unpalatable in single instances) permeates society these days. It’s in the press, on television, online… all the time. Captialism is evil; tax the rich; make the rich pay their fair share; they’ll make more than you’ll...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Meg Whitman of the East, will soon be headed west in his private jet to urge Californians to vote for Whitman for governor instead of Democrat Jerry Brown. In a rare sit-down newspaper interview, Bloomberg told The New York Times that he will campaign for his fellow tech billionaire sometime next month. Bloomberg told the newspaper he is trying to push his centrist brand of politics by making endorsements in marquee races and helping moderate candidates fend off the conservative tea party movement. Whitman, the former eBay CEO whose estimated wealth is $1.3...

Bill Gates, left, and Warren Buffett, seen in this 2007 photo during the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, are trying to persuade other American billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity. More than three dozen of America's wealthiest individuals and families have joined Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in agreeing to give away at least half their fortunes to charity. The announcement was made Wednesday by The Giving Pledge, an effort officially launched by Gates and Buffett earlier this year to persuade the richest people in America to commit to giving the majority of their...

A founder of Intel, the billionaire donated lavishly to political causes and the arts. He was a key backer of L.A.'s first black mayor, Tom Bradley.

<p>The floating palace has been designed at a whopping 656 feet (200 meters) in length -- as long as two football fields end-to-end.</p> <p>If built, it would surpass the world's current largest private yacht, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich's "Eclipse," by 99 feet (30 meters).</p>

A couple of days ago, we blogged about the "Progress Report" released by the Center for American Progress on the influence of conservative and libertarian billionaires on politics and policy. We pointed out at the time that it seemed a curious tack for CAP to take, especially since the think tank itself was funded by billionaire George Soros and billionaires Herbert and Marion Sandler. But we learn from Brian Doherty of Reason Magazine that this effort at attacking billionaire opponents of Obama probably originated in the White House, and that the history of CAP includes an interesting connection with Nancy...

<p>Prominent Houston attorney John O'Quinn was one of two men who died this morning when their SUV slammed into a large tree on Allen Parkway after the driver apparently lost control, police said.</p> <p>"I'm stunned. The community lost one of its biggest assets," said Rick Laminack, who worked with O'Quinn from 1987 until 2006. "He was a great lawyer who shared a lot of his wealth with people who needed help."</p>

For eight years Joaquín Guzmán Loera reportedly managed his international drug smuggling operation from behind bars while enjoying a lavish prison life with access to booze, women and a home entertainment system. Then in January 2001, facing extradition to the U.S., Guzmán slipped into a laundry cart and escaped. Since then "El Chapo," or Shorty, as he is called, has tightened his grip on Mexico's drug trade as head of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine to the U.S. It is a lucrative business to be in these days. Thirty-five million people in the U.S. use...

Billionaire Paul Allen is a Microsoft cofounder, the owner of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and the owner of the NBA's Portland Trailblazers. And, thanks to the stimulus bill President Obama signed this week, he's also about to be as much as a billion dollars richer. Here's how: Allen owns a majority stake in cable provider Charter Communications. Charter Communications this month said it would reduce its debt load by $8 billion and enter Chapter 11. Normally, partners at a firm like Charter Communications would have to pay taxes on the amount of debt forgiven in this process, which is, in...

Hoping to halt what it called "a fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world," the Securities and Exchange Commission charged billionaire R. Allen Stanford and other executives at his massive financial services company, Stanford Financial Group, with operating a multibillion-dollar fraudulent investment scheme. In a complaint filed early Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Dallas, the SEC alleged Antigua-based Stanford International Bank (SIB) fabricated investment returns in order to market and sell high-yielding certificates of deposits. The complaint charged SIB with selling approximately $8 billion of CDs to investors by promising improbable and unsubstantiated interest...

German Billionaire Commits Suicide After VW Losses In killing himself German billionaire Adolf Merckle has become the latest casualty of the global financial crisis, his family saying on Tuesday he was broken by the struggle to salvage their business empire. Merckle, who was the world's 94th-richest person in 2008 according to Forbes magazine, spent his life building a business conglomerate with about 100,000 employees. The empire was poised to come crashing down after his family made wrong-way bets on skyrocketing Volkswagen shares. The family has been under pressure to sell some assets or seek bridging loans and has been in...

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1019...rket-headwinds Obama Billionaire Supporters Are Causing Market Headwinds by: Jason Schwarz October 28, 2008 | Market turmoil gets Barack Obama elected. He knows this and more importantly, so do his supporters. A survey released by Prince and Associates, shows that 75% of voters worth $1 million to $10 million are favoring John McCain, but of those voters worth more than $30 million, two-thirds support Obama. It's no secret that the majority of uber rich individuals despise the current administration and are willing to do whatever they can to get new blood into the White House; even if it comes under...

WASHINGTON – Billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, formerly No. 1 on Bill Clinton's enemies list as the so-called "marionette" of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," met with the former president for two hours this week, offering to help him with his global initiative. Scaife, who personally funded many of the investigations of the Clinton administration that led to the president's impeachment, last April formerly endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a daily newspaper he owns. That endorsement came just before the Pennsylvania primary, which Hillary Clinton won, and just after Scaife met with her. Scaife's...

George Soros talked about domestic and international financial markets, and the impact of a recent mortgage crisis on other sectors of the economy. In his remarks he said the worst of the financial crisis might be over but the effects of he crisis might be felt for some time to come by various sectors of the economy. Mr. Soros is the author of The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crash of 2008 and What It Means, published by PublicAffairs.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has fuelled talk of a massive tunnel between Europe and America by forking out $160 MLN on the world’s largest drill. The 19-metre giant will be the first drill capable of boring a four-lane tunnel. The project would link Russia’s far eastern Chutoka region, which Abramovich governs, with America’s Alaska. The tunnel was first mooted by the Tsars and then in the 1990s, but both times it was dumped because of high costs. President Vladimir Putin is said to back the latest idea, as it would open up lucrative freight routes from Europe and allow Russian...

To most political observers, the near-certainty that John McCain will be the Republican nominee ends any prospects for a Michael Bloomberg candidacy as an independent. Alas, Bloomberg begs to differ. He reportedly sees the current state of play as another opening for his presidential dreams. After telling friends he believes Hillary Clinton will be her party's nominee, Bloomberg said at a recent event, "Hillary should pray I get in the race because that would help her," according to a source quoted in the Daily News gossip column Rush & Molloy. Bloomberg, whose office would neither confirm nor deny he made...

BELOIT, Wis. - A roofing company billionaire listed as the 91st richest man in the United States has died after a fall from a roof at his home. Police say 66-year-old Ken Hendricks was checking construction on a garage roof at his home in Rock, Wisc., on Thursday night when he fell through. His company, ABC Supply, says he suffered massive head injuries. Police say Hendricks' wife called authorities and attempted CPR, but her husband was pronounced dead after being transported to Rockford Memorial Hospital in Winnebago County, Illinois. Hendricks was the founder, chairman and CEO of ABC Supply, the...

We scoured the how-to-marry-rich literature and talked to society watchers, upscale matchmakers and wealth experts. And we pored over divorce news to see how spouse No. 1 was supplanted by spouse No. 2 (or 3). Unfortunately, those who had already made it to Fat City refused to say how they got there. "I am just not telling," said one billionaire's wife over her cellphone before hanging up. Nonetheless, our findings were encouraging. Marrying a billionaire is not beyond your grasp, as long as you're willing to work hard toward your goal. (Yes, hard work - albeit of a different kind...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Mayor Bloomberg is decrying the state of the 2008 presidential race, faulting the major party candidates for offering shallow, simplistic prescriptions, and scolding the press for failing to demand more from those seeking the White House. During an appearance at Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg said the televised debates among the presidential candidates have been, in essence, a waste of time. "They have absolutely nothing to do with the job and the qualifications. And they don't tell you anything about whether or not any of those candidates would be good or bad presidents....

The new Forbes billionaires list just came out. It’s always fun to flip through the names, ages and profiles of the billionaires. I could give you a lot of details about how many more there are than last year, where they’re from, and how much younger they all are. But details like that probably wouldn’t answer your main question: What could you possibly have in common with a billionaire? The answer is pretty exciting. Of all the 946 billionaires in the world, 60 percent made their money from scratch. Think about that. The majority of the world’s billionaires once had...

<p>French police are investigating a car crash involving a billionaire Russian parliamentarian who was critically injured when his Ferrari slammed into a tree on the Mediterranean seafront in Nice.</p> <p>Suleyman Kerimov, 40, a far rightwing member of the State Duma from Dagestan, was said by police to have lost control of the car as he sped on Saturday in rain along the Promenade des Anglais, the Riviera’s most celebrated thoroughfare.</p>

THE Russian billionaire and parliamentarian Suleiman Kerimov was in a critical condition in a French hospital yesterday after crashing a Ferrari Enzo only hours after buying it. Listed by Forbes magazine as the 72nd richest person in the world, Mr Kerimov lost control of the £500,000 car on Saturday afternoon on the Promenade des Anglais in the French resort of Nice. The car hit a tree, burst into flames and was destroyed. Mr Kerimov, 41, was flown by helicopter to a specialist burns clinic at a hospital in Marseilles. A spokesman for the hospital authority said his condition remained "worrisome",...

Billionaire political activist George Soros, who spent more than $25 million trying to help defeat President Bush in 2004, has spent almost as much to keep a roof over his head on Fifth Avenue. The Hungarian-born financier just paid his ex-wife, Susan Weber Soros, $24 million for the 16-room duplex co-op apartment at 1060 Fifth Ave., which the couple shared during their 20 years of marriage.

Speaking at a Washington symposium on the continuing threat posed by illegal drugs to American society, Calvina Fay of the Drug Free America Foundation declared billionaire George Soros to be an "extremely evil person" who wants to legalize dangerous mind-altering drugs. Sounding a battle cry as critical November elections approach, Fay told the assembled conservative activists that Soros, an atheist who is a major funder of the Democratic Party and liberal-left causes, is "our common enemy" and that he is determined to subvert traditional values and undermine America's families. Soros, convicted of insider trading in France, is a financial speculator...

California leads the states in how much Section 527 issue-advocacy groups spend on state elections — $5.2 million, up more than 300 percent from the 2004 election cycle. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics says this is part of a national trend in which these tax-exempt groups, which can raise unlimited money, are shifting their focus from federal to state politics. California Common Cause policy advocate Ned Wigglesworth said the explosion in state-level spending underscores that "527s are the 'billionaire boys clubs' of politics — they're created specifically to skirt campaign laws and give some of the richest people...

After long probe, Palm Beach billionaire faces solicitation charge By Larry Keller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 26, 2006 Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein paid to have underage girls and young women brought to his home, where he received massages and sometimes sex, according to an investigation by the Palm Beach Police Department. Palm Beach police spent months sifting through Epstein's trash and watching his waterfront home and Palm Beach International Airport to keep tabs on his private jet. An indictment charging Epstein, 53, was unsealed Monday, charging him with one count of felony solicitation of prostitution. ******...

Billionaire Ron Burkle's day began with a devastating defeat as documents relating to his bitter divorce were released to the public following a California appeals court ruling. But he had reason to celebrate later Thursday when the court rejected his wife's claim that he had tricked her into accepting an agreement for a fraction of their assets - $30 million plus interest and a house - if the couple ever divorced. Janet Burkle's fraud allegation triggered court and legislative battles over whether their divorce records should be kept sealed. "It is unfortunate that Mr. Burkle's desire for privacy was exploited...

On Monday Fidel Castro, the world's longest-ruling Marxist dictator, offered to resign the Presidency of Cuba. Earlier this month Forbes Magazine listed Castro as the world's seventh wealthiest ruler, estimating his personal fortune at $900 million, almost double the $500 million personal net worth of Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. "If they prove that I have an account abroad…containing even one dollar," Castro declared in a Cuban television appearance, "I will resign from my position, from my current responsibilities." Forbes, reported Agence France-Presse, "cited former Cuban officials as saying that Castro had skimmed profits from a Havana convention center, retail...

Ex-president Bill Clinton stands to reap "tens of millions of dollars" in personal income from his job as an advisor to Yucaipa Companies, a California private equity firm controlled by one of his best friends and biggest political donors, billionaire Ron Burkle. The New York Times reports Sunday that the sweetheart deal comes "without great effort and at virtually no risk" for the former president. "He has put up little of his own money and has no day-to-day responsibilities over how the more than $1 billion in the funds is invested," the paper said. Mr. Burkle, who built his financial...

After leaving the White House in 2001, former President Bill Clinton was inundated with business and job offers, from investment-bank partnerships to seats on corporate boards. He turned them all down, with one exception: He agreed to be an adviser to a family of funds run by the Yucaipa Companies, a California private equity firm controlled by one of his best friends, the billionaire Ronald W. Burkle. Mr. Clinton's arrangement with Mr. Burkle is an unusual one for a former president, giving him the potential to make tens of millions of dollars without great effort and at virtually no risk,...

You think Tom Cruise hopping up and down on Oprah’s couch was as silly as it can get? You must have missed the talk show queen’s recent program about people living on low wages. Claiming that 30 million Americans are working full time but are still stuck in poverty, Miss Winfrey cited the statistic as a “shameful secret” proving that the promise of the American dream has been broken. But there’s more: “This is why New Orleans happened. This is why it happened. Because you had people who were working, service people, minimum wage jobs, working people who didn’t have...

SIX people have been arrested while protesting outside a state memorial service at Sydney's Opera House honouring late media mogul Kerry Packer. The four men and two women were part of a small group calling themselves the Kerry Packer Dis-memorial Collective gathered outside the Opera House to protest against the taxpayer-funded service. The six, whose ages are unknown, were arrested for refusing police directions to leave, and will be taken to Surry Hills police station for processing. One of the six was also arrested for hindering police. The remaining protesters then dispersed as guests arrived. Security is tight around the...