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The article profiles the luxury home builder company Toll Brothers, focusing on resurgent demand for suburban luxury homes following the 2008 housing market crash at the start of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Topics include statistics on actual and forecasted revenue, growth and profits for Toll Brothers and the housing industry; and a discussion of whether the millennial generation will move to the suburbs as the become more economically secure.

The article introduced the publications list of the "Forbes 400" richest people in the U.S. by discussing why it is important to keep track of such wealth. The author observes that in the fluctuating fortunes of billionaires one may discern how well the U.S. is doing. Increasing levels of wealth, she says, reflect innovation and entrepreneurship.

This article presents leaders in the world of business who made their fortunes in the news and entertainment industry. The business leaders include Rupert Murdoch of News Corp., John Kluge of Metromedia and Sumner Redstone of Viacom. The article notes that economic factors have caused these business leaders' net worth to fluctuate and in most cases decline.

This article focuses on those of the wealthiest 400 Americans who are in the trucking industry. Businessman Dennis Washington is involved in the mining and marine and rail transport industries. Stewart Rahr built Kinray, the largest independent drug distributor in the world. Also profiled is Donald Schneider, owner of the largest private freight carrier in the U.S., Schneider National.

The article introduces a series of articles about the 400 wealthiest Americans. They include financier Warren Buffett, casino owner Kirk Kerkorian, Enterprise Rent-A-Car founder Jack C. Taylor, banker Andrew Beal, trader Steven Schonfeld, Marvel Entertainment chief Isaac Perlmutter, venture capitalist Michael Moritz, talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey and brothers Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries.

The article reports on the cost and standard of living for middle class citizens in the U.S. Judith Lederman is a 50-year-old divorced mother of one in Scarsdale, New York who was laid off and is now considering a job making less than her previous $120,000 salary due to an increase in taxes. If she took another job paying $120,000 she would be paying $16,500 a year more in federal and state taxes and she would not be eligible for a $12,000 cut in her mortgage payment or $19,000 in college aid.

The article reports on the loss of wealth by the world's billionaires. Adolf Merckle, the fifth richest man in Germany, committed suicide on January 15, 2009 following the bad financial performance of his holding company VEM Group. In 2008 there were 1,125 billionaires in the world but as of 2009 there are only 793 with 87% of those loosing money in their personal affairs. Billionaire David Geffen experienced a net worth drop of 25% due to failures in real estate and art. INSETS: Currency Collapse;Riches to Rags.

The article examines the state of pensions in the U.S. Glenn Goss, a police chief with a guaranteed pension is mentioned. The author discusses the economic burden of guaranteed pensions, noting how the U.S. is being divided into a public sector with large secure pensions and a private sector with small risky pensions.

The article discusses the efforts of Visa Inc. to compete with rivals and innovations in payment technologies. The efforts of Visa's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Joe Saunders to improve the positioning of traditional credit cards in the developing countries market is discussed. Also mentioned are Visa's efforts to become more competitive against electronic payment systems such as PayPal and Bill Me Later Inc. INSET: Voyeurism for Profit.

The article presents information about people appearing on the publication's list of the 400 richest people in the U.S. People on the list for the include car dealer Norman Braman, Gap clothing company founders Donald Fisher and Doris Fisher, and fertilizer manufacturer Alexander Rovt. Former members who fell off the list include former American International Group (AIG) Chairman Hank Greenberg and former Ebay chief executive Margaret Whitman.

This article profiles the wealthiest people in the U.S. who have made their fortune in stock market investments. They include Abigail Johnson, from mutual funds, Carl Icahn, from leveraged buyouts, Ronald Perelman, from leveraged buyouts, George Soros, from hedge funds, Steven Cohen, from hedge funds, James Simons, from hedge funds, Eli Broad, from art investments, Henry Kravis, from leveraged buyouts, George Roberts, from leveraged buyouts, and John Paulson, from hedge funds.

This article profiles the wealthiest people in the U.S. who have made their fortune in oil and other energy industries. They include George B. Kaiser, Leonard Blavatnik, Dan Duncan, Harold Hamm, Robert Rowling, Robert M. Bass, Robert Earl Holding, Dennis Washington, Richard Kinder, and Evgeny (Eugene) Shvidler.

The article reports that many state employee pension funds have lost significant amounts of money. Many pension fund managers bought heavily into opportunity funds on the real estate market and earned large annual returns and millions of new members. When the market collapsed in the end of 2007 and through the first half of 2008, these funds lost nearly all of their value.

The article reports on securities which are being purchased by investors in Spring 2008 as a recession, as some are calling it, sets in. When times are bad, the article indicates, one should buy assets. Commentary is provided by Christopher Ailman, chief investment officer for the California State Teachers' Retirement System. The various stocks and bonds being purchased, and the individuals and institutions purchasing them, are detailed.

This article provides a list of wealthy capitalists, including investors Carl Ichan, Ronald Perelman, and Edward C. Johnson III.

This article discusses the "Forbes" 400, how membership requires a net worth of $1.3 billion, and how the U. S. wealthiest plutocrats rose $290 billion to $1.54 trillion in 2007. Nearly half of the 45 new members made their fortunes in hedge funds and private equity. Twelve people returned to the list, including computer memory mavens David Sun and John Tu.

The article presents "Forbes" magazine's annual list of the 400 most wealthy businesspeople in the United States. For the first time, everyone in the "Forbes" 400 has at least $1 billion, with collective net worth reaching more than $1 trillion. Those on the list include housing developer John P. Manning and Chesapeake Energy founders Aubrey McClendon and Tom L. Ward.

The article discusses Donald Trump's preparations for retirement, which include plans to hand over his real estate empire to son Don Jr. and daughter Ivanka. Though Trump maintains firm control over the Trump Organization, his children have taken over more and more day-to-day duties as Trump has widened the scope of his public appearances and reality television program. INSET: HOW MUCH IS HE WORTH?.

The article discusses the most powerful women in the world. Getting on the list is increasingly more competitive due to a greater number of women entering into the fields of business and politics. Power rankings are based on a composite of visibility and economic impact of the position in view. The top three most powerful women in order are Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany; Condoleezza Rice, United States Secretary of State; and Wu Yi, Vice premier of China.

This article discusses the real estate market in the United States. A reported real estate boom in the early 2000s has dwindled by 2006, but the author offers advice on retaining housing profits. Also given is a formula for obtaining a house's capitalization rate, which will help determine how much investment reward a property is generating compared to those around it, allowing prospective home buyers to make better housing decisions, especially by taking advantage of a depressed market. INSET: Your Castle's P/E Ratio.

The article looks at United States businessmen who have been detained in China without due process. David Ji is a celebrated U.S.-bred entrepreneur who built a billion-dollar business importing DVD players from China, where he was born, and selling them at Wal-Mart and Circuit City stores in the U.S., his adopted home. Ji--a U.S. citizen held against his will in Shanghai by the authorities--says he has signed over control of his company, Apex Digital, to a government-owned supplier that has accused him of a massive fraud. Ji has been held hostage by supplier Sichuan Changhong Electric. The supplier insists Ji has waffled on paying $470 million for millions of U.S.-bound DVD units and television sets it shipped to Apex, further charging that he kited $85 million in bogus checks. Ji is one of a dozen or so U.S. businessmen detained without due process in the past decade in China.

The article profiles nine innovators found in the 24th annual edition of The Forbes 400 list of successful people, including Pierre Omidyar of eBay, Robert Rich Senior, Michael Milken, John Sperling of the Apollo Group, Peter Sperling of the Apollo Group, James Jannard, Ray Dolby of Dolby Laboratories, Gary Karlin Michelson, and Stanley S. Hubbard of DirecTV.

The article introduces the 24th annual edition of The Forbes 400, a list of successful businesspeople in the United States. In this, the 24th annual edition of The Forbes 400, the collective net worth of the nation's wealthiest climbed $125 billion, to $1.13 trillion. All but 26 people on our roster are billionaires. Gulf Coast oilman Tracy Krohn landed on the list after taking his W&T Offshore drilling operation public. Developers Jorge Perez and Steven Roth are two of the six real estate tycoons added to the list. The year's biggest gainer was casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, whose net worth jumped $8.5 billion on a big bet he is making on the peninsula of Macau, China. Gambling is also the source of wealth for Ruth Parasol and Russell DeLeon, a husband-and-wife team who run their online casino, PartyGaming, from Gibraltar.

The article focuses on Steven Roth and his Vornado Realty Trust in New York. Roth is now putting the finishing touches on a 56-story midtown Manhattan skyscraper that will combine a home for Bloomberg LP with luxury condos. Vornado owns Chicago's Brobdingnagian exhibit facility, the Merchandise Mart. The REIT has 27 million square feet of office space, mainly in New York and Washington, D.C. Also supermarkets, shopping centers, cold-storage vaults, even a hotel. Not to mention stakes in Sears, Roebuck and Toys "R" Us. Vornado, with ally Related Cos., has the edge in bidding to build an office structure above New York's new Penn Station, says Peter Slatin, editor of a real estate newsletter, the Slatin Report. In an era when the phrases "pure play" and "core competency" ring loudly on Wall Street, Roth's Vornado has acquitted itself superbly. This trust's average annual return since 2000 has been 26%, compared with the 15% returned by office REITs and 20% by all REITs. Starting out in 1980 as a collector of shopping centers, Vornado has grown to $20 billion in assets to become the nation's fourth-largest REIT. A self-styled "greedy guy," the husky, sharply dressed Roth cuts a distinctive figure as chief executive. Endlessly energetic and talkative, Roth, 63, inspires both fear and love among staffers and competitors.

The article features Mortimer B. Zuckerman and his office building empire, the publicly traded Boston Properties. Unlike Trump, whose development business is privately held, and Zeckendorf, who flourished before the real estate investment trust was invented, Zuckerman gets ample equity capital for his projects via share offerings of Boston Properties. In 1984 Zuckerman bought "U.S. News & World Report." This has been by all appearances an unprofitable venture. Zuckerman's next media deal was his purchase of the "Daily News" in New York City in 1993. This publication is scarcely more lucrative than the first, but gives him a certain visibility among the social elite. Zuckerman's first love is real estate. In the stock market Boston Properties has fared well. Zuckerman has faced catastrophe twice since converting to REIT status. Boston Properties seeks focuses on high-demand cities where it is difficult to build--New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C.--and avoiding office-glut towns like Atlanta and Chicago. INSET: Boom and Bust.

The article looks at Manuel Moroun, owner of the Ambassador Bridge between the United States and Canada. Between Michigan and Ontario lies the Ambassador Bridge. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Ambassador loomed as an undefended economic umbilical cord to the U.S. Within days hundreds of National Guardsmen, police volunteers and U.S. customs and immigration agents descended on the bridge, forcing trucks to wait in line for up to 12 hours to be searched for any signs of a terror plot. Delays at the Ambassador and other crossings into Canada cost $800 million a month, by one economist's reckoning. If terrorists knocked out the Ambassador, the Michigan and Ontario economies could run losses of $3 billion a month. The Ambassador Bridge is not owned by the U.S. or Canada--it is owned by Moroun. Moroun owns seven trucking companies that use the bridge; a logistics firm; several customs brokerages; and a monopoly on duty-free retail, including a gasoline station at the Michigan end of the bridge and a currency-exchange service. Some people want government to buy the bridge outright, some call for new regulatory oversight, and two groups want to bust up the Moroun monopoly entirely.

This article previews the 2004 Forbes, a list which ranks the 400 wealthiest Americans. The economy's recovery may be a little shaky, but you wouldn't know it from looking at this year's Forbes 400. The combined net worth of the nation's wealthiest climbed to $1 trillion, up $45 billion in 12 months. But while the creation of wealth marches on, the preservation of it is a chancy affair. Disney boss Michael Eisner is gone from the list, capping a bad year of shareholder revolts and lackluster releases.Also gone: long-time Forbes 400 member and buyout king Theodore Forstmann, who took large stakes in XO Communications and McLeodUSA before they went bust. Those left behind made room for 45 new names, 10 of them members of Chicago's Pritzker clan, whose intergenerational squabble resulted in the carving up of the family's $17 billion hotel and manufacturing fortune. But not all the new names are family money: Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page prove a good idea can still make a bundle; bond guru William Gross' steady hand on volatile markets created his $1 billion fortune; and Kenneth Hendricks shows a guy can still make a buck in the unsexy trade of building supplies. Those left behind made room for 45 new names, 10 of them members of Chicago's Pritzker clan, whose intergenerational squabble resulted in the carving up of the family's$ 17 billion hotel and manufacturing fortune. But not all the new names are family money: Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page prove a good idea can still make a bundle; bond guru William Gross' steady hand on volatile markets created his $1 billion fortune; and Kenneth Hendricks shows a guy can still make a buck in the unsexy trade of building supplies. High oil and gas prices also helped: T. Boone Pickens, a perennial suspect for two decades, finally makes an appearance on the list, but his $750 million pile is dwarfed by the $4.2 billion net worth of Houston pipeline maven Daniel Duncan.

Presents an alphabetical listing of the 2004 Forbes 400, a ranking of the wealthiest Americans.

This article discusses Marriott business and franchising practices. If you want warm and cuddly treatment from Marriott, register as a guest. Geller had a raft of complaints about Marriott International, which owns the Ritz name and operates his hotel for around$ 4 million yearly. He was tired of Marriott's high fees, its secrecy about the hotel's finances and its foot-dragging on a renovation. Two Marriott luxury hotels so close together. Marriott's outwardly genial chairman, white-haired J.W. (Bill) Marriott Jr., looks on Geller's lawsuit

General Growth Properties' growth rate, as we calculate it in our annual survey of real estate investment trusts (REIT), is five times that of the average REIT. The key to General Growth Properties' success is easier said than accomplished: Find the right tenants and put them in the right places. Mall trusts have an advantage over other REIT subspecies. In addition to collecting rent, they can also take a slice of a store's sales, ranging from 3 percent to 10 percent. Mall REITs take an active interest in tenants that borders on social engineering: getting the right mix and putting them in the right places to maximize sales. The bad news for prospective REIT shareholders is that the sector's shares have already been bid up.

This article focuses on a $6 billion lawsuit Liesel Pritzker launched against her father, Robert, and 11 older cousins, accusing them of looting her trust funds and those of her brother, Matthew, 21. It has also shed more light on a plan, which Forbes first reported in September 2002, to carve up the $15 billion fortune that took the Pritzker forebears a century to build. The aftermath of the suits has parted the curtain on the shadowy financial underpinnings of this empire--a vast network of domestic and foreign trusts designed to minimize, if not eliminate, taxes. The family created hundreds of trusts; establishing a new one came as naturally as opening a passbook savings account to an ordinary American. It's no coincidence that just as the splitup is occurring, the IRS, sometime around the beginning of 2003, issued a notice of tax deficiency to Liesel's cousin Thomas, who effectively controls the trusts, and to other cousins. There was more to the family's tax ingenuity than parking profits offshore. The hardest fought claim: By manipulating payments from one Pritzker entity to another (for, say, managing a hotel or using the Hyatt brand), the family artificially accumulated income in low-tax Singapore and Hong Kong, shortchanging tax collectors in high-tax places like Israel and the U.S. In a 1999 decision, a U.S. Tax Court judge agreed the family was underpaying, but said the IRS' proposed adjustments were arbitrary.

After two years of declining values, the rich finally got richer. On this, "Forbes" magazine's 21st annual edition of "The Forbes 400," the aggregate net worth of the nation's wealthiest 400 citizens leapt 10% in the past year, to $955 billion -- just one Bill Gates away from $1 trillion. Leading the charge: Internet stocks. A rising price of admission -- $600 million -- pushed 20 members off the list, including wrestling's Vince McMahon and Global Crossing's Gary Winnick. Their places were filled by newcomers like hedge fund managers Steve Cohen and Ken Griffin, both of whom would prefer we keep them out of our club.

The article introduces "Forbes," magazine's list of the 400 wealthiest people in the U.S. The nation's 400 wealthiest people misplaced $80 billion in net worth over the past year, a contributing factor in the exit of 35 people from the list. This year's new members include David Gold, who paid his admission in pennies collected by his chain of 99 Cent Only Stores Inc., Timothy Boyle, who climbed on with the success of Columbia Sportswear.

Focuses on the efforts of Boeing, under chief executive officer Philip Condit, to expand its high-technology services business. Plans to create a Boeing Digital Cinema; Goal of Condit to diversify Boeing beyond manufacturing airplanes and become a systems integrator; Details on Boeing's services efforts, including the creation of a system that would integrate satellites, camera, control equipment, and communications gear; Criticism of Condit's efforts to re-create Boeing as a services company; Outlook.

This article presents information about real estate investment trusts (REIT). Collections of properties ranging from office buildings to strip malls, REITs pay nicer dividends than industrial stocks because the tax laws force them to. To maintain their flow-through status- meaning, shareholders pay income tax but the REIT itself doesn't--they must distribute at least 90% of profits. Provided that the economy moves upward over time, so should the rents that feed these dividends, as well as the value of the buildings in the REIT portfolios.

The article focuses on the interest shown by companies in trophy buildings in the U.S. Topics covered include the bankruptcy of the Rockefeller Center, the value of space at the World Financial Center and the resiliency of the trophies during recessions. Also mentioned are the ownership of trophy properties by publicly traded firms and the decline in the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trust's office index.

The article explains why a record number of rich Americans are going into bankruptcy in the midst of the nation's longest economic expansion in global history. It mentions surveys that explain the reasons for this including the rise in national profligacy as seen in the doubling of consumer spending, the lowering rate of personal savings, and rising mortgage debts. It presents some cases of millionaires who went bankrupt because of their unbridled optimism.