Free Republic

Why have thousands upon thousands of very wealthy people suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to buy a home in Montana? At this moment, Montana is one of the hottest real estate markets in the entire country. When a desirable house is put on the market, it can often spark a wild bidding war. Of course the vast majority of the potential buyers involved in these bidding wars do not actually have any roots in Montana at all. Vast hordes of wealthy individuals from Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and other major cities are flooding into the state, and there...

NEW YORK — As emerging stock markets surged during the past year, 102 wealthy people around the world won a much-coveted title along with their stellar gains — they all became billionaires. But tepid returns in the United States ate into the fortunes of some of the richest Americans, including the founding family of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The number of billionaires around the world rose by 102 to a record 793 over the past year, and their combined wealth grew 18 percent to $ 2. 6 trillion, according to Forbes magazine’s 2006 rankings of the world’s richest people. Microsoft Corp....