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Ingvar Kamprad, who turns 90 on Mar 30, has a reputation for penny-pinching, which he claims helped Ikea to become one of the world's top brand names.Frugal billionaire Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the flatpack furniture chain Ikea, buys his clothes at flea markets to save money, he said in a documentary to be broadcast Wednesday (Mar 9) on Swedish television. Kamprad, who turns 90 on Mar 30, has a reputation for penny-pinching, which he claims helped Ikea to become one of the world's top brand names. "I don't think I'm wearing anything that wasn't bought at a flea market....

The Koch brothers, the most powerful conservative mega donors in the United States, will not use their $400 million political arsenal to try to block Republican front-runner Donald Trump's path to the presidential nomination, a spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday. The decision by the billionaire industrialists is another setback to Republican establishment efforts to derail the New York real estate mogul's bid for the White House, and follows speculation the Kochs would soon launch a "Trump Intervention." "We have no plans to get involved in the primary," said James Davis, spokesman for Freedom Partners, the Koch brothers' political umbrella group....

Waking up and heading to an office is so five years ago. As technology allows for greater opportunities for flextime and working remotely, the need for a traditional workday - and workplace - is beginning to evaporate for anyone whose job can be done online, as part of a communications network. So too is the need for a spread of office space to get a business up and running--launching an enterprise from your desk or kitchen counter at home has never been easier. And those who protest that they simply can't get down to business working from home in their...

In a move that will inevitably cause deep concern among social conservative voters, it is reported that billionaire Paul Singer will be named finance chairman of the Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) campaign. Singer is infamous among social conservatives for funding pro-homosexual initiatives at the state level, nationally, and even internationally.

In fact, despite his attacks on his party’s donor class and establishment, Cruz, the Texas senator who won last week’s Iowa caucuses, appears to have locked down the support of four of the top six donors ― the Wilks family of Cisco, Texas (the No. 1 donor on POLITICO’s list), New York hedge fund tycoon Bob Mercer (No. 2), Texas energy investor Toby Neugebauer (No. 4) and Illinois manufacturing moguls Dick and Liz Uihlein (No. 6) ― but only one other donor on the list.

<p>Silicon Valley may have plenty of millionaires, but the road to U.S. billionairedom is increasingly paved through finance.</p> <p>Nearly 27% of all U.S. billionaires in 2014 worked in finance (read: hedge-fund managers and a few others), according to a study by Caroline Freund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Sarah Oliver, a research analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank.</p>

Billionaire Charles Koch’s political network plans to spend hundreds of millions to back Republicans in 2016, but he has penned an article agreeing with Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders about an economic system he calls “rigged to help the privileged few.” “He believes we have a two-tiered society that increasingly dooms millions of our fellow citizens to lives of poverty and hopelessness,” he wrote in the Washington Post. “He thinks many corporations seek and benefit from corporate welfare while ordinary citizens are denied opportunities . . . I agree with him.” But Koch offered a solution Sanders was sure to reject — stop...

Billionaire reality TV star Mark Cuban played the president in "Sharknado 3," which naturally qualifies him to handicap the 2016 presidential field -- and encourage fellow billionaire Michael Bloomberg to enter the race for the White House. ... In an interview with WABC Radio, Cuban said he would like to see a Bloomberg candidacy -- describing the former mayor of New York City as progressive on social issues, such as gun control, yet fiscally conservative. ... This isn't the first time Cuban has encouraged a Bloomberg candidacy. As he surveyed the 2008 Republican and Democratic contenders, he called on a...

The 100 biggest donors of 2016 cycle have spent $195 million trying to influence the presidential election more than the $155 million spent by the 2 million smallest donors combined, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data. The analysis found that the leading beneficiaries of checks from the top 100 donors were Jeb Bushs floundering campaign for the GOP nomination (a supportive super PAC received $49 million from donors on the list), Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton (super PACs dedicated to her raised $38 million from top 100 donors) and Ted Cruzs insurgent GOP campaign ($37 million). In fact,...

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – Donald Trump is so fiercely opposed by the Koch brothers network that some donors believe the powerful group will intervene to stop the billionaire if it looks like he could win the Republican presidential nomination. "They are always very hesitant to get involved in a primary, but I think if they were going to do it, this would be the time because they just hate the guy,” said a donor who attended the Koch network’s winter retreat, held over the weekend at a luxury resort on the edge of Coachella Valley. Both officials and donors within...

Billionaire investor Robert Soros 'siphoned $21million of joint tax refunds into his own bank account while his wife recovered from breast cancer' Billionaire financier Robert Soros funneled millions of dollars of join tax refunds into his personal accounts while his wife Melissa Schiff Soros recovered from cancer, it has been claimed. Soros, the son of billionaire investor George, is accused of debiting four checks worth a total of $21million into his private accounts despite the money being owed to both him and his wife. Schiff made the accusations in Manhattan Superior Court on Friday as she took to the witness...

Charles Koch is “disappointed” with the line-up of Republican candidates in the 2016 cycle, and is surprised by the lack of influence he and his brother have wielded so far. In an interview with the Financial Times, the billionaire businessman and philanthropist, said he’ll eventually support a candidate who he agrees with on some things with, but that it’s hard to get excited. He said a list presented to all the candidates about the Kochs' political arm's priorities “doesn’t seem to faze them much. You’d think we could have more influence.”

Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough warned that the association between former President Bill Clinton and convicted sex offender billionaire Jeffrey Epstein will be something the media will be forced to focus on if Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump chooses to discuss it. And that could be a "big problem" for his wife Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, Scarborough said. According to Scarborough, previous allegations of Bill Clinton's indiscretions, particularly in the 2008 presidential cycle when Hillary Clinton ran against Barack Obama, were not discussed in public forums. However, this time will be different because of Trump's ability...

With a new wave of terrorism, mass shootings and unprecedented social violence around the globe now a part of the daily routine for billions of people across both developed and developing nations, one group wants to be certain there is no chance of "close encounters", violent or otherwise, with the peasantry during its upcoming annual boondoggle at the World Economic Forum in Davos. According to Swiss info, when the world's billionaires land their private jets in the gorgeous Swiss town (which at 1,560 m is also the highest town in Europe) on January 20, they will have up to 5,000...

1. Gives billions to left-wing causes... 2. Influence on U.S. elections... 3. Wants to curtail American sovereignty... 4. Media Matters: Soros is a financial backer of Media Matters... 5. MoveOn.org: Soros has been a major funder of MoveOn.org... 6. Center for American Progress: Headed by John Podesta, White House chief of staff under President Clinton, the Center for American Progress has been instrumental in providing progressive talking.... 7. Environmental extremism: Former Obama green jobs czar Van Jones and his leftist environmental ideas have been funded by Soros' money... 8. America Coming Together: Soros gave nearly $20 million to this 527...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump got into an interesting war of words on Twitter last week with a Saudi prince. "Dopey Prince (Al-Waleed bin Talal) wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy's money. Can't do it when I get elected," Trump tweeted. Trump's social-media salvo was truly provocative, and not because he called a billionaire member of the Saudi royal family "dopey." What made Trump's outburst on Twitter so interesting was his willingness to call out the tacit and longstanding subversion of the U.S. political system by foreign interests. "You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but...

Hillary Clinton is upping her anti-Wall Street rhetoric, amid reports that the Clinton Foundation is running a private-equity company down in Colombia.The same private-equity field dissed by 2008 Obama in hundreds of millions of dollars of negative ads against Mitt Romney b/c Romney earned his fortune w/ a PEF. The Bogota-based Fondo Acceso, started in 2010 by Bill Clinton, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and mining millionaire Frank Giustra....$20 million seed funding supposedly came from the Clinton Foundations Clinton-Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative and Carlos Slims the SLIM Foundation, the Washington Free Beacon reports. In an ominous sign, Fondo Acceso took down...

Despite a population of just over 1 million people and just 3 electoral votes, Montana continues to be a hot bed of spending for billionaire’s and their political non-profit groups. (cut, jump) Liberal Swiss billionaire and Center for American Progress board member Hansjorg Wyss has received much attention in recent weeks after The Daily Caller revealed that he had paid $1.5 million to a Colorado woman to settle sex abuse allegations. Money from Wyss’ charitable foundation has proven quite important in Montana’s environmental movement.

The State Department (which Hillary Clinton used to run and where she still holds significant influence) has been very clear about one thing. There is no relationship between donations to the Clinton Foundation and actions taken by the Secretary of State during her tenure there. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. Perish the thought. You’re all just a bunch of Clinton haters who are trying to stop the ongoing charity work of these wonderful people. And yet for some strange reason we keep seeing stories like this. Hillary hadn’t even finished unpacking her things in her new office at...

In 2013, John Podesta was paid $87,000 by a shadowy foreign billionaire whose passion is preventing energy exploration on American land. Just two years later, Podesta is a member of President Obama’s inner circle, and the driving force inside the White House to block 12 million acres of land in Alaska’s Artic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. The circumstances suggest Podesta may have run afoul of Obama’s highly-touted ethics pledge, which requires political appointees to disqualify themselves in matters relating to the interests of a former employer or client. Podesta — who is preparing to leave the White House