Free Republic

The subprime mortgage crisis is spreading to a somewhat unexpected place: homes costing more than $500,000. As lending has rapidly gotten more restrictive for borrowers taking out large loans, sales of expensive homes have fallen sharply around the country during what should be one of the busiest seasons for buyers and sellers, mortgage bankers and real estate agents say. To some degree the change is due to difficulty getting financing, as borrowers are finding fewer lenders willing or able to fund "jumbo" mortgages, loans for amounts greater than $417,000. Such loans are too big to be guaranteed by government-sponsored housing...

In another apparent effort to prepare Marylanders for looming tax increases, Gov. Martin O'Malley released a recorded statement to radio stations suggesting corporations and higher-income earners will be among those asked to pay more. "When given a choice between decline and progress, the people of Maryland always choose to make progress," O'Malley (D) says in the message, which runs more than two minutes and was sent to more than 50 radio stations, an aide said. "Together we can overcome the deficit in our path, and we can get our fiscal house in order in a way that improves our state...

SHANGHAI: China has 150,000 super-rich with personal wealth of $5 million or more and their ranks are rising fast, pushing up prices for golf, yachting, villas and other luxuries, researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said yesterday."The number of wealthy individuals in China is growing very fast, based on the economic boom," Hoogewerf, who compiles an annual China "rich list", said. His China Luxury Index, which tracks 32 items including the Rolls-Royce Phantom EWB and the Louis Vuitton Speedy Bag, shows prices of luxury products in China jumped 8.7 per cent in the year to this February, compared with a 3.5pc rise in...

A mansion that once belonged to publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst was put on the market Monday for $165 million. The seller, attorney-investor Leonard M. Ross, bought the Beverly Hills property in 1976 and is seeking a "lifestyle change," said his real-estate broker, Stephen Shapiro. It is believed to be the nation's most expensive residential listing. The asking price surpassed the $155 million being sought by developers of a 10-bedroom estate in Montana's Big Sky country, and the $135 million price of an Aspen, Colo., compound owned by Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former ambassador to the United States. Hearst...

The number of millionaires in the world increased by 8.3 percent in 2006, with about 9.5 million individuals now estimated to have more than a million dollars in financial assets, a report said Wednesday. The survey by financial services group Capgemini and US investment bank Merrill Lynch said strong global economic growth and gains on the stock market explained the expansion of the exclusive club of "High Net Worth Individuals" (HNWIs). The financial assets owned by the group totalled 37.2 trillion dollars (27.7 trillion euros), an increase of 11.4 percent from 2005, with Singapore, India, Indonesia and Russia producing the...

The world's richest people are facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions: a chronic shortage of butlers. English butlers are sought after for their 'calmness in the face of adversity' The demand for a new generation of Jeeves and Hudsons - from London to Dubai and, especially, from the Hamptons to Malibu - is so high that it is being counted in the tens of thousands. "If we doubled the number of butlers, they wouldn't be without work," said Charles MacPherson, vice-chairman of the International Guild of Professional Butlers. Robert Watson, managing director of the Guild of Professional English Butlers, agreed....

Berlin-Tempelhof, Hitler’s favourite airport, could yet be rescued by one of the world’s most influential Jewish philanthropists. Cosmetics billionaire, New York socialite and art collector Ronald Lauder – son of the celebrated Estée Lauder - is behind a €350m (£235m) project to turn the Third Reich architectural relic into a luxury fly-in health clinic for Europe’s super rich. Berlin's cash-strapped city fathers earlier this year finally cleared the way to develop the proposed new Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI) on the site of the present Schönefeld airport to the south east of the city, handling an annual 22 million passengers. Inner...

With Democrats in control of both Houses of Congress for the first time in twelve years, economic inequality is back on the agenda. In his response to the State of the Union address, new Virginia Senator James Webb began by contrasting how much those at the top of the average company earned with the amount earned by those at the bottom. Running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, John Edwards is returning to his 2004 theme of "two Americas." They are joined by liberal pundits such as Paul Krugman and Jonathan Chait, who between them accuse conservatives of "hatred" and of...

CBS4) MIAMI Ladies, if you’re in the mood for love, there is a sea of singles waiting for you through this new dating service. And the men featured in it might have one very enticing quality in common—they’re wealthy. Wealthymen.com is a website that boasts of men making six figure incomes and more. People running the site can verify a man’s picture, income and his profession. Roughly 170 thousand women are clamoring to meet some of the 70,000 single men available on the site. It looks like the men have the ball in their court. According to Clinton Cox, vice-president...

The real Nancy Pelosi — multi-millionaire, non-union resort, dining and winery baronessNovember 10th, 2006 Why doesn’t the LA Times or San Francisco Chronicle write about this? Where is the journalists’ oversight by mainstream media? It’s up to citizen journalistsBy Mick GregoryNancy Pelosi’s socialist political views are exactly what have kept her elected in San Francisco, along with the flow of union campaign money. The staunch “union supporter” Pelosi has even received the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farm Workers Union. But her $25 million Napa vineyards and winery, she and her husband own is a non-union shop. The...

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (CNN) -- "War on the Middle Class" is the title of my new book and our special report on CNN. Wednesday we broadcast live from the front lines of this all-out war, and we talked to American families facing the tough issues that are all but being ignored by our elected officials in Washington. Our middle class is the largest group of people in the country, but they are also the least represented in our nation's capital. It's been a tough decade for the American middle class, which has been experiencing stagnant wages in the face of...

SEN. Hillary Clinton is barnstorming the Hamptons this weekend to fill her campaign coffers with the help of her hubby, Bill. Last night, Michael Recanati co-hosted a dinner in East Hampton with Ira Statfeld at $4,200 per head, the max under federal law. Today's brunch thrown by Lisa Perry in Sag Harbor costs $2,000. Tonight, the ex-president joins Hillary at the East Hampton home of Michele and Bill Nuti, where Jon Bon Jovi will perform. Tickets are $300, but $1,000 will get you a backstage pass.

Hollywood stars and business moguls alike are paying retired jurists to quietly handle their civil disputes outside the glare of public courthouses, a practice some warn is creating a secret justice system for the rich and famous. Under California law, the parties to a lawsuit can agree to hire a private judge who, unlike those paid to act as mediators or arbitrators, issue rulings that can be appealed. Such cases are still subject to the same public access requirements of trials held in court, but often many of them prove difficult to track. Proceedings are held in private offices and...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax. It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall...

Pacific cult hails second coming of its wealthy US messiah By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 17/04/2006) Followers of a South Pacific cult, who worship a mythical Second World War American serviceman they hope will one day return bearing riches, believe that their prayers have been answered. For 60 years, the bizarre John Frum movement on Tanna, in the Vanuatu archipelago, has believed that the great wealth or "cargo" that the United States military brought to their island home in wartime will one day miraculously return. They worship a messiah-like figure, John (or Jon) Frum, thought to be a combination...

Boston Legal hits a NERVE with Liberal lies. Tuesday nights episode about STICK IT, in which the Air Head assistant puts a posit note with “STICK IT” on her tax statement was full of LIBERAL RANTING. She though that she should not pay for: 1. Lies about the war, 2. Prisoner torture, 3. If the poor stop paying then the Wealthy will have to. Anyway, they have a message board, and its about 95% against the propaganda. Most people are really mad, and I think it's about time. Check it out at http://forums.go.com/abc/primetime/bostonlegal/forum?start=0&forumID=35

Revlon CEO Ron Perelman ditches wife #4, actress Ellen Barkin, to the tune of $20 million. Previous wives #1-#3 have cost Perelman a pay-out of $8 million, $80 million and $30 million, respectively. FOR Ronald O. Perelman, Forbes magazine's 34th-richest man in America, marriage would seem to be getting expensive... ...So why do the ultrarich marry, and re-marry, and re-marry? For men who have cycled through what Harriet Newman Cohen, a New York divorce lawyer, called "very high powered, high ZIP code divorces," marriage, more than dating, fills old traditions of respectability, status and comfort. It might even be love,...

Is our current system of taxation a Fair Tax on American Families? Democrats would have you believe that they want to tax the rich more and protect the Middle Class. Not True ! Democrats like the current system because their wealthy friends like the system, their wealthy Lobbyists help create the system over 40 plus years of Democratic control of the House. Democrats impune the attempts of Republicans to simplify the tax code, lower tax rates and close loopholes. Democrats scream on one hand about the wealthy but they don't pay their fair share of tax at all. Tehresa Heinz...

IRS Auditing More Corporations, Wealthy More corporations and wealthy taxpayers had their tax returns audited by IRS examiners this year, helping the agency haul in a record $47.3 billion in u! npaid taxes. The IRS audited one in 63 wealthy individuals and families, those reporting $100,000 or more in earnings. Overall, about one out of every 107 individuals and families faced an audit, which was more than last year when about one in 129 taxpayers were audited. Audits of corporations and small businesses also climbed when compared with last year. About 20 percent of all corporations were audited during the...

Unlike Prop 63, which increased taxes on the wealthy to pay for mental health or Rob “Meathead” Reiner's initiative that would increase taxes on high income earners to pay for universal preschool; this proposed initiative is labeled exactly what it is …A Wealth Tax! Read More... Craig DeLuz Visit The Home of Uncommon Sense... www.craigdeluz.com