Free Republic

The proposed U.S. financial bailout scheme is a dreadful mistake that could plunge the country into an economic abyss for years and will only reward the people who brought the financial system to the brink of disaster, says famed investor Jim Rogers. "It's the wrong approach," Mr. Rogers said yesterday while huffing through a lengthy morning workout on an exercise bike in a downtown Toronto hotel. "This has never worked in history. Other approaches have worked, which they're ignoring. Part of the problem is these guys don't know any history. "All they know is, Goldman Sachs is on the phone...

Warren E. Buffett is emerging as the banker of choice to the embattled blue-chip companies of American business. Mr. Buffett, the billionaire investor, announced on Wednesday that he would invest $3 billion in General Electric, the industrial giant that is also the nation’s largest nonbank financial company. The move comes eight days after he said he would invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs.

The former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, is to launch a new political party with a Russian billionaire, Alexander Lebedev. Lebedev, a businessman and banker whose company, National Reserve Corps, controls more than 30% of the Russian national carrier, Aeroflot, announced the launch today and said the party would campaign for legal and economic reform. Other policies are a stronger role for parliament, "less state capitalism" and the expansion of Russia's independent media. Lebedev and Gorbachev between them own 49% of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which employed the reporter Anna Politkovskya, a fierce critic of the Kremlin who was reknowned...

After months of speculation about his political future, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to announce on Thursday morning that he will seek a third term as mayor, according to three people who have been told of his plans. ight now, Mr. Bloomberg is barred by law from seeking re-election. But he will propose trying to revise the city’s 15-year-old term limits law, which would otherwise force him and dozens of other elected leaders out of office in 2009, the three people said. In his announcement, Mr. Bloomberg, a former Wall Street trader and founder of a billion-dollar financial data firm,...

Who is attacking the U.S.? The big casualty in this 21st century U.S. civil war is the Middle Class George Soros, Maurice Strong and company redefine the Middleclass George Soros, Al Gore, Warren Buffet, Maurice StrongThe Democrat-loving mainstream media is missing the boat on Warren Buffet’s take of America’s economic meltdown as …”a sort of economic Pearl Harbor we’re going through.” That being the case, then surely the first question should be: “Who is attacking the U.S.?” The billionaire’s $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. at the same time he’s touting the Treasury’s $700 billion bank rescue plan,...

Berkshire Hathaway, the company owned by US investment guru Warren Buffett, has bought $5bn (£2.7bn) worth of Goldman Sachs shares. Mr Buffett, the world's most famous investor, said Goldman was an "exceptional institution".

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N) will invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), in a major boost for the Wall Street bank from perhaps the world's best-known investor. "It's a vote of confidence which is gold plated," said Michael Holland, a money manager at Holland & Co in New York. "You don't get better than this." Shares of Goldman rose 6.5 percent following the announcement, while Standard & Poor's 500 futures gained 16 points.

Why isn't a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs born in Honduras? I mean, why is it that creative people don't emerge in the Third World, capable of developing innovative products and building companies that market those products, create jobs, generate large profits and influence decisively the fate of this planet? What we know about human intelligence and character features is that they're disseminated more or less equitably. The Finns who created Nokia and live in an opulent paradise in northern Europe are no more intelligent than the Dominicans or the Ecuadoreans who are crushed by poverty. On the other...

The Pritzkers, one of the nation's wealthiest families and heirs to the fortune created by the Hyatt hotels, agreed today to pay a record $460 million to the federal government to avoid being punished for the failure of Superior Bank F.S.B., the big savings and loan institution that regulators seized last summer.

LONDON (Reuters) - The bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers (LEH.N) is another blow for the hedge fund industry, though the writing has been on the wall long enough for many to have reduced their exposure to the U.S. investment bank. Legendary fund manager George Soros, who runs around $18 billion in assets, looks likely to have had his fingers burned after raising his stake in Lehman to 9.5 million shares in the second quarter. A spokesman for Soros Fund Management declined to comment on the composition of their portfolio. British activist hedge fund Algebris will also probably have taken a...

Billionaire George Soros's hedge fund may have lost at least $120 million on its stake in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., mostly acquired in the second quarter, as the investment bank suffered its worst financial result. Maybe he wants his money back from Obama, maybe thats why Bambi needs donation. Couldnt happen to a nicer guy......

LOS ANGELES - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, a self-described government reformer, is dabbling in a little politics as usual. Palin is headlining a GOP fundraiser later this month at the home of a California billionaire where the asking price for a snapshot with her and a seat at the headtable is $50,000.

New evidence has emerged that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was closely associated as early as age 25 to a key adviser to a Saudi billionaire who had mentored the founding members of the Black Panthers. In a videotaped interview this year on New York’s all news cable channel NY1, a prominent African-American businessman and political figure made the curious disclosures about Obama. (See Video Clip Below) Percy Sutton, the former borough president of Manhattan, off-handedly revealed the unusual circumstances about his first encounter with the young Obama. “I was introduced to (Obama) by a friend who was raising...

Even as Barack Obama gave his soaring speech Thursday night, his campaign was playing hardball with its critics. Team Obama has launched an offensive against WGN, the Chicago Tribune's radio station, for interviewing Stanley Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is a conservative writer who this week forced the University of Illinois to finally open its records on Sen. Obama's association with William Ayers, the unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist. An Obama campaign email to supporters called Mr. Kurtz a "slimy character assassin" whose "divisive, destructive ranting" should be confronted. WGN producer Zack Christenson says the outpouring of negative calls and emails is...

LOS ANGELES - Former Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and his entertainment lawyer co-defendant were convicted Friday of charges linked to the wiretapping of billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian’s former wife in a child support battle. Pellicano and attorney Terry Christensen were each convicted of conspiracy to commit wiretapping. Pellicano was also convicted of wiretapping and Christensen was convicted of aiding and abetting a wiretap. “We are disappointed, think the jury is wrong, and we will be appealing,” said Patricia Glaser, Christensen’s attorney and law partner.

Daytime talk show diva and billionaire businesswoman Oprah Winfrey, who played a crucial early primary role in raising the prominence of her fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama, was so moved by her man's Democratic acceptance speech Thursday night that she cried off her false eyelashes.

A measure that would decriminalize minor marijuana-possession cases is on the ballot in Massachusetts largely because of one man: billionaire financier and liberal activist George Soros.Of the $429,000 collected last year by the group advancing the measure, $400,000 came from Soros, who has championed similar efforts in several states and spent $24 million to fight President Bush's 2004 re-election bid. The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy needed about $315,000 of that just to collect the more than 100,000 signatures that secured a spot on the ballot, according to campaign finance reports reviewed by The Associated Press. "All of us owe...

Denver, Aug 25, 2008 / 11:51 pm (CNA).- Tim Gill, a billionaire from Colorado who has funded homosexual activism throughout the United States, spoke at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) Delegates Caucus at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, outlining how he has worked to advance homosexual causes in U.S. politics. Gill endorsed undermining rising politicians critical of homosexual advocacy by targeting donations to benefit their opponents on the state level. Gill, who was introduced at the caucus as one of the nation’s largest funders of LGBT “civil rights initiatives,” reportedly has spent $150 million on LGBT issues....

Gill: “The only way bigots are going to learn is if we take their power away from them" Tim Gill Denver, Aug 25, 2008 / 11:51 pm (CNA).- Tim Gill, a billionaire from Colorado who has funded homosexual activism throughout the United States, spoke at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) Delegates Caucus at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, outlining how he has worked to advance homosexual causes in U.S. politics. Gill endorsed undermining rising politicians critical of homosexual advocacy by targeting donations to benefit their opponents on the state level.Gill, who was introduced at the caucus...

"Why aren’t the American media investigating the role of British billionaire businessman Nadhmi Auchi in supplying loans to Barack Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko? Some point to media bias, but there is another factor. Working for Auchi, who was born in Iraq, attorneys from London law firm Carter-Ruck have for several months been flooding American and British newspapers and websites with letters demanding removal of material they deem “defamatory” to their client."

Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, who helped pay for the devastating attacks on the military record of Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry in 2004, has paid for a television ad that assails Barack Obama over his ties to a founder of a violent radical group. Simmons, who is also a major fundraiser for John McCain, donated $2.87 million that a newly formed nonprofit group, the American Issues Project, has used for the ad, a report filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission shows. The 60-second ad opens with Obama giving a speech, then asks how much voters know about him.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett, the billionaire co-founder of a top private equity firm and a prominent voice for U.S. fiscal responsibility, called on the United States and its elected officials to combat the nation's fast-growing, multi-trillion dollar debt load. < > It also argues, and panelists agreed, that the United States has become too dependent on foreign investors to buy its goods and its publicly-issued debt. < > Buffett, the world's richest person according to Forbes magazine, added: "It has not paid to sell America short since 1776, and the time to start is not in 2008." <...

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, two of the world's richest men, toured Canadian Natural Resources Ltd's (CNQ.TO) Horizon oil sands project near Fort McMurray, Alberta, this week. < > With reserves of about 173 billion barrels, the oil sands are the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East. The region's producers plan to spend more than C$100 billion developing the resource and output is expected to nearly triple to 2.8 million barrels a day by 2015. < >

RENO, Nevada (Reuters) - White House hopeful Barack Obama talked energy policy on Sunday with T. Boone Pickens, a billionaire oil investor who funded the "Swift Boat" attacks on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004. Pickens, a lifelong Republican, has endorsed neither his party's candidate, Arizona Sen. John McCain, nor Democrat Obama in the November 4 election and wants to make energy a top campaign issue. He has advocated a plan to cut U.S. oil use by converting cars to run on natural gas. Pickens funded efforts in 2004 by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which...

London: Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund's largest holding. As of June 30, the stake in Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer is known, made up 22 per cent of the $3.68 billion of stocks and American depositary receipts held by Soros Fund Management, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Petrobras has since slumped 28 per cent. Soros has increased his mining and commodities holdings, a move that accelerated in the first quarter...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Oil prices will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years if the United States fails to reduce its dependence on foreign imports, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens told U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday. The United States imports nearly 70 percent of its oil and Pickens said the world's top petroleum-consuming nation would import 80 percent in a decade if it does not aggressively tap its own natural gas and renewable resources. "If we continue to drift, oil will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years," Pickens testified at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and...

For the Pritzker family of Chicago, the 2001 collapse of subprime-mortgage lender Superior Bank was an embarrassing failure in a corner of their giant business empire. Billionaire Penny Pritzker helped run Hinsdale, Ill.-based Superior, overseeing her family's 50% ownership stake. She now serves as Barack Obama's national campaign-finance chairwoman, which means her banking past could prove to be an embarrassment to her -- and perhaps to the campaign. Superior was seized in 2001 and later closed by federal regulators. Government investigators and consumer advocates have contended that Superior engaged in unsound financial activities and predatory lending practices. Ms. Pritzker, a...

This 60-storey house is for just one family. India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is planning a palace in the heart of Mumbai with helipad, health club, hanging gardens and six floors of car parking.

Obama's Liberal Shock Troops By JOHN FUND July 12, 2008 While he is a skilled candidate, Barack Obama's ability to surprise, stun and sweep over the vaunted Clinton Machine to capture the Democratic nomination was rooted in his background as a community organizer. He's now turning those skills to the general election. But liberals aren't just on the march on the presidential level. This year, liberal activists are spending parts of the fortunes of their wealthy donors to transform politics at the state and local level. In 2005, billionaire investor George Soros convened a group of 70 super-rich liberal donors...

[...] While the billionaire's goals are laudable, his renewable energy proposals likely would serve his business interests as well. He has direct investments in a plethora of energy companies, including BP Capital, a hedge fund that invests in renewable energy companies, Exco Resources (nyse: XCO - news - people ), Clean Energy Fuels (nasdaq: CLNE - news - people ), Interoil, Westport Innovations, Mesa Power and Mesa Water. And the scope of Pickens' projects are massive. Mesa Power, for instance, is set to spend $2 billion on 667 General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ) wind turbines as...

Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire friend of Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton, has admitted soliciting prostitution from underage girls in South Florida. The 55-year-old financier has been sentenced to 18 months in jail followed by a year of house arrest. He will also be designated a sex offender. Epstein was arrested two years ago after he allegedly paid several girls under the age of 18 between $200 (£100) and $300 (£150) each in return for naked massages at his Palm Beach home that sometimes led to sex. He also faces multi-million pound lawsuits in state and federal courts filed by several...

YEKATERINBURG — Urals fertilizer billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev is the new owner of Florida's most expensive house after paying U.S. property tycoon Donald Trump $100 million for the waterfront property. Rybolovlev, whose fortune has soared by $10 billion in the last year on an unprecedented boom in demand for fertilizers, said through a spokesman that the purchase was an investment and that he had no plans to swap Moscow life for the Florida coast. Trump more than doubled his money on the sale of Maison de l'Amitie, a 3,000-square-meter mansion on Palm Beach bought for $41.4 million at a bankruptcy auction...

Vietnam veterans ask T. Boone Pickens to pay up on Kerry record 02:48 PM CDT on Saturday, June 21, 2008 By GROMER JEFFERS JR./ The Dallas Morning News Ten men who served in Vietnam with Sen. John Kerry want Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens to fork over the $1 million he said he would give anyone who could disprove claims that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made about Mr. Kerry's war record during the 2004 presidential campaign. The men sent a lengthy letter and supporting documentation to Mr. Pickens on Thursday. Mr. Pickens, who helped support the anti-Kerry group, could...

A UN agency has severed ties with Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev over allegations that he helped fund construction in the West Bank, Reuters reported on Friday. According to the report, Leviev, who is the chairman of Africa Israel Investments, is in charge of at least one company in his conglomerate which the Arab rights advocacy group Adalah-NY claims built Jewish settlements on West Bank land. Adalah-NY launched a campaign against Leviev whereby they appealed to the UN children's fund UNICEF to cut its connection with the Israeli businessman, the report said. UNICEF has received direct and indirect funding from Leviev...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World crude oil production has topped out at 85 million barrels per day even as demand keeps climbing, helping to drive a stunning surge in prices, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday. "I do believe you have peaked out at 85 million barrels a day globally," Pickens, who heads BP Capital hedge fund with more than $4 billion under management, said during testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The United States alone has been using "21 million barrels of the 85 million and producing about 7 of the 21, so if...

Warren Buffet, the investor known as the sage of Omaha, is this week expected to privately step into the $46bn hostile bid by Belgian brewer Inbev for Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser beer. Buffett, who owns 5 per cent of Anheuser through his group Berkshire Hathaway, is planning to speak to August Busch IV, the Anheuser chief executive, within the next few days to discuss the hostile bid, according to sources close to the deal. Buffett wants to remain neutral in the early days of the controversial offer, but it is understood Busch wants to know his opinion of the...

At the present rate of depreciation, the Zimbabwe dollar will hit a billion to one US dollar within the next day or so. Try looking at the numbers: US$1 = Z$1 000 000 000. But remember that Zimbabwe slashed three zeros off the currency in August 2006, so based on the pre-2006 Zimbabawe dollar, the numbers are even worse: US$1 = Z$1 000 000 000 000...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The United States is already in a recession and it will be longer as well as deeper than many people expect, U.S. investor Warren Buffett said in an interview published in German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. He said the United States was "already in recession" and added: "Perhaps not in the sense that economists would define it" with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. "But the people are already feeling the effects," said Buffett, the world's richest man. "It will be deeper and last longer than many think." But he said that won't stop him from...

Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor best known for shaking up public companies, says he is very concerned about the Democratic frontrunner, Barack Obama. “I personally think he would be a terrible president,'' Icahn told investors in New York, according to wire reports. Icahn thinks a President Obama would increase spending dramatically, something he says “the country can't afford right now.” An Obama spending spree and the resulting tax hikes to pay for it would kill the dollar and result in higher interest rates, Icahn warned. “I don't think Obama really understands economics,'' Icahn said. Obama also would take office with...

A shareholder revolt at ExxonMobil led by the billionaire Rockefeller family has won the support of four significant British institutional investors who will call on Monday for a shakeup in the governance of the world's biggest oil company. Guardian.co.uk has learned that F&C Asset Management, Morley Fund Management, the Co-Operative Insurance Society and the West Midlands Pension Fund are throwing their weight behind a resolution demanding that ExxonMobil appoints an independent chairman to stimulate debate on the company's board.

snip- Pickens: Well, that's the first step to a 4,000-megawatt wind farm. This is 1,000 megawatts. We start receiving those turbines in mid 2010. We will have the total 4,000 megawatts finished by the end of 2015. That power will go into a transmission line that will tie into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas system in the state of Texas, and it will be transmitted downstate. Video Watch why Pickens is willing to spend billions on wind » Velshi: What's your view of wind power? It's one of several things that we should be looking at in terms of...

Democrats are trying to chase from the political playing field a new conservative group expected to spend tens of millions of dollars this year attacking liberal candidates. Using accusations of links to gambling and "forced abortions," the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is striving to make the group, Freedom's Watch, too toxic for Republicans to stomach. "House Republicans and Republican candidates need to decide whether they can afford to partner with Freedom's Watch, a group that embodies the Republicans' culture of corruption by consistently breaking the law and is bankrolled by money that is inconsistent with their values," said Jennifer...

The other day I opined in Who Has More Level 3 Assets Than Capital? that there were an exorbitant amount of Level 3 assets on the books of dealers and banks. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if the Federal Reserve has some after they took a load of stuff off the hands of their broker/dealer buddies. My comments, frankly, were greeted by some cheers and some jeers. Either is OK by me, as my opinion remains the same. If there are no observable inputs to even mark your bonds to a model, good luck selling them. For example, I saw...

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s first-quarter net income dropped 64% as underwriting income wilted and the giant conglomerate reported $1.7 billion in unrealized derivatives losses. Last quarter, Chairman Warren Buffett told investors that "the party is over," saying he expects insurance earnings to fall off significantly in 2008. Though Berkshire owns businesses ranging from See's Candy to Benjamin Moore paint, its various insurance companies still generate the bulk of Berkshire's results. Mr. Buffett's sprawling conglomerate posted net income of $940 million, or $607 per Class A share, compared with $2.21 billion, or $1,682 a share a year earlier. Excluding investments derivatives, which...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady writes in today's Wall Street Journal that George Soros's Open Society Institute has been funding terrorism. In a column entitled Friends of Terror in Peru, O'Grady notes that Thursday's vote by the European Parliament to take the Peruvian guerrilla group known as the Tupac Amaru (aka MRTA) off its terrorist list has Peru in an uproar. For good reason: The MRTA is notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians to advance its political agenda. More recently, Peruvian officials have linked it to Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Movement," which seeks to destabilize democracies in Latin America, and to the...

The Rockefeller family, the longest continuous shareholder in ExxonMobil, is abandoning its behind-the-scenes role at the company to press for corporate governance reforms including an independent chairman and a stronger board. Family representatives have scheduled a news conference for Wednesday to issue a public rebuke to the company, which began as part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. “After years of working behind the scenes to encourage Exxon’s management to approach its industry challenges in new ways, members of the Rockefeller family will publicly explain the concerns held by multiple generations of their family,’’ the family said in a statement....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett, the world's richest person, said on Monday the U.S. economy is in a recession that will be more severe than most people expect. Buffett made his comments on CNBC television after his Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N) agreed to invest $6.5 billion in the takeover of chewing gum maker Wm Wrigley Jr Co (WWY.N) by Mars Inc in a $23 billion transaction. "This is not a field of specialty for me, but my general feeling is that the recession will be longer and deeper than most people think," Buffett said. "This will not be...

LONDON (AP) — The collective wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest people went up by nearly 15 percent last year, and more than half the country's 75 billionaires are foreign-born, according to a list published by the Sunday Times newspaper.

The British-born rich are being left behind in the wealth stakes by an international “superclass” based in London... Only six of the top twenty places in the list, published yesterday, go to people who were born in Britain. Britain’s two wealthiest men are once again the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of Chelsea Football Club. Mr Mittal, 57, who retains his Indian passport but spends much of his time in London, tops the list for the fourth consecutive year... Mr Mittal is joined in the top 20 by foreign-born newcomers such as Alisher Usmanov, a...

On April 6, 2008, Barack Obama visited the San Francisco region, zipping from event to event all day long, from one end of the Bay Area to the other. What? you might ask. How did I miss that? If only I had known, I would have gone to see him. Well, there's a reason you didn't know about it. Obama didn't want you to know about it. Because the events he was attending weren't for people like you. They were for people with lots and lots of money, who use that money to gain access and influence with politicians --...