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POPSBuy A Lunch With Buffett Bidding for a lunch with Warren Buffett on eBay has already run over $40k and will certainly go much higher. Last year, the winning bidder paid just over $650k. The proceeds from the auction go to a San Francisco charity.
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POPSBloomberg As Presidential Kingmaker Billionaire Bloomberg isn't running for President but he might have a say in who wins. If the popular NYC mayor proves he has some influence in the key swing state of Florida, he could have an effect on the election's outcome.
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POPSBillionaire Blogging Mark Cuban has long had one. Ross Perot launched one last week. Carl Icahn plans to start blogging today It's clear that the prominence and success of these billionaires makes others curious what they have to say. Perot's first post was only a press release announcing the site, PerotCharts.com. It's received 74 responses in a few days.
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POPSAmazon.com The Store? Amazon has a big advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers because most of its customers don't pay sales tax. That basically adds an 8% discount to all its goods and lures more customers. But Amazon is losing that advantage as states change their sales tax codes. Billionaire Bill Ackerman has a plan. Buy Borders.
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POPSIRS Says Billionaires Owes $144 Million Billionaire Philip Anschutz gave a bank some of his stock. The bank gave him money back. Anshutz says he didn't have to pay certain taxes on the deals because they weren't sales. They sure sound like they were though.
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POPSBillionaire Indicted On Drug Charges Billionaire and Broadcom co-founder Henry Nicholas was indicted today for stock-options backdating. Not a big surprise, since there had been a very public investigation for a while. What is surprising is another indictment unsealed today that alleges Nicholas was heavily involved with illegal drugs like ecstasy and cocaine. Nicholas allegedly called them "party favors" and used them to drug industry execs and Broadcom customers. One bizarre story from the indictment: it alleges Nicholas distributed his party favors during a private flight. The indictment says that so much pot smoke filled the air, the pilot was forced to put on his oxygen mask.
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POPSYahoo's Scorched Earth Tactics Seems like Jerry Yang's Yahoo was considering some creative ways to fight off a Microsoft acquisition. E-mails suggest the company was considering giving employees financial incentive to quit if acquired by Microsoft. It's reminiscent of the old war tactic of salting the earth. Retreating armies dump salt on farmland so that their enemies won't be able to use them.
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POPSPickens: Watch Out Yahoo We already know Yahoo shareholders are angry the company nixed a takeover by Microsoft. Now billionaire T. Boone Pickens says those shareholders have solid grounds to sue the company.
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POPSSoros: Oil Bubbling If high oil prices are just a bubble that is about to pop, some relief might actually be on the way.
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POPSBuffett For Obama With the economy sure to be a major issue in the coming election, Obama may want to play up an endorsement from one of the world's sharpest businesspeople.
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POPSPeltz To Rising Food Costs: Meh Ethanol, rising fuel costs, and increasing demand from the developing countries have all conspired to jack up ingredient costs for food chains. That's made some investors wary but not Nelson Peltz. Worth noting since Peltz has proven his savvy in investing in this sector time and again.
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POPSTrump, A Valuable Name Impressive, Trump was reportedly supposed to get a 25% cut of each condo sold in this development. He wasn't building it and didn't own the land, he was just lending his name and promotional flair.
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POPSYahoo Stake Could Be Big Bucks For Icahn Carl Icahn might be able to quickly turn his new stake in Yahoo into a big windfall. Reports suggest the billionaire is considering pushing the Web portal to reconsider a buyout offer from Microsoft. If he's successful, his 50 million Yahoo shares could be worth as much as $33 each. He's been buying those shares in the past couple weeks when they were south of $27 each.
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POPSMurdoch Thwarted This is a surprising turn of events. Murdoch was willing to offer $580 million for Newsday because he could combine the paper with his New York Post and save a bunch of money. Dolan's Cablevision lacks the same synergy opportunities with Newsday but he was willing to pay $70 million more. There's no good explanation why so far, but a lot of people are wondering.
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POPSBillionaire's Navy SEAL Nanny Jailed Broadcom billionaire Henry Nicholas used an ex-Navy SEAL to watch his three kids. That nanny is now being thrown in jail for refusing to help a federal investigation into Broadcom. It's unclear exactly why the nanny, Stephen "Otter" Otten, is refusing to cooperate but it doesn't seem like jail will budge him. "SEALs don't snitch," says Otten's attorney.
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POPSBuffett Brings Together Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting will bring together Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Yahoo President Susan Decker, which are both Berkshire directors. It might be a good time for them to discuss Microsoft's bid for Yahoo, which looks very close to going hostile.
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POPSThe $360 Billion Check That Bounced A man allegedly attempted to cash a $360 billion check last month. If successful, he would have had the net worth of about six Warren Buffetts. A savvy bank teller found all those zeros on the check suspicious. She called the police, who also found a weapon and pot on the man. The man has been arrested on an accusation of forgery. No word if he's been able to post bail.
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POPSMark Cuban, Cubs Owner? Mark Cuban is looking more and more like a serious contender to buy baseball's Chicago Cubs from fellow billie Sam Zell. Cuban was spotted at last night's Cubs' game. The Cubs won, which is more than Cuban can say for the team he already owns. Also Wednesday, Cuban fired the coach of his Dallas Mavericks following its first-round playoff series loss.
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POPSKerkorian's Bold Buy The deal getting all the headlines Monday morning is the purchase of Wrigley by Mars but I think billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's stake-building in Ford is a much bolder move. Even though the Wrigley deal is for a lot more money, it's buying into a very safe industry. The company is a strong player in a stable and growing business. People are going to always eat candy and chew gum, even if we are in a recession. Kerkorian though is buying into Ford even as most investors remain tepid about the stock and Detroit auto makers keep losing market share. Plus, big-ticket purchases, like cars, are slammed hard during an economic slowdown like the one we are going through. This latest move from Kerkorian, who has proven his business savvy time and again, is worth keeping an eye on.
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POPSBuffett Rumors Lift British Utility Shares of Centrica jumped yesterday on talk that billionaire Warren Buffett is building a stake in the the British energy company. It's all rumor at this point but Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has already picked up shares in a couple of other British utilities.
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POPSBloomberg Urged To Buy New York Times According to a Newsweek article, some of billionaire Michael Bloomberg's closest aides are urging him to launch a takeover of the New York Times. With a Presidential run off the table, Bloomberg would have plenty of time (and money) to do it when his term as New York's mayor ends.
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POPSCancer Claims Billionaire Jerry Zucker Jerry Zucker, a self-made billionaire, passed away this weekend at the age of 58. A couple years ago, he bought Hudson Bay, one of the world's oldest companies. It was chartered in 1670 as a fur-trading venture.
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POPSMurdoch's Journal Not Laughing At Spoof A parody of the Wall Street Journal did not amuse the paper recently bought by billionaire Rupert Murdoch. It appears a WSJ employee is buying up all the copies of the parody.
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POPSThe Chuck Norris of Charity NBC is developing a drama about a generous maverick billionaire called "The Philanthropist." The Journal's Robert Frank jokingly describes him as the "Chuck Norris of Charity."
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POPSLegal Woes For Youngest Billionaire Accusations that Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest member on our list of billionaires, grabbed the idea for Facebook from his employers have been an unseemly chapter in his otherwise remarkable life. The 23-year old appears close to putting the matter to rest though as his company moves towards a settlement.
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POPSBill Gates, Stem Rust Fighter Another big donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This one is to fight stem rust, a disease that causes big problems for wheat crops in Africa.
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POPSAir Blavatnik Billionaire Len Blavatnik is pursuing a discount airline. Its an interesting departure for the American since his Access Industries largely focuses on chemicals, natural resources, and media.
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POPSSoros Down On Dollar It's hardly an unusual position to be bearish on the U.S. dollar these days, but this is worth noting since its coming from George Soros.
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POPSStarving Billionaires Massive inflation in Zimbabwe is pumping up the net worths of the country's residents. At least on paper. In a place where a loaf of bread costs 25 million Zimbabwean dollars, even a billionaire can go hungry.
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POPSIcahn Gets His Way Motorola is breaking up. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has been pushing for a shakeup at the struggling company for some time.
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POPSOdd Questions For Zuckerberg The Facebook billionaire drew a capacity audience at a tech conference this weekend but it was his interviewer that got all the attention.
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POPSBallmer Trying To Keep Sonics In Seattle Billionaire and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wants to help renovate the aging Sonics arena. The current owners of the NBA franchise are hoping to move it to Oklahoma City but a rejuvenated home court could stop that.