Greenspan interview on Age of tirbulence

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Interview with  Greenspan on “the age of turbulence”

Wal-Mart starts ‘Black Friday’ early

Deals on turkey dinners and electronics start this week.

Posted by Teresa Mears on Thursday, November 5, 2009 1:22 PM

At least one store isn’t waiting until Black Friday to unleash its deals. Rather than leaking its ads early, Wal-Mart is starting its electronics sales early, plus offering $20 turkey dinners for eight.

Wal-Mart will begin the first of several one-week “electronics savings events” on Saturday, Nov. 7. Here are the first week’s deals:

• HP Notebook Computer, $298. 3GB memory, 250 GB hard drive, Windows 7 Premium.
• Sharp 1080p HDTVs: 42-inch for $498, 46-inch for $698 (120 Hz), 52-inch for $898 (120 Hz).
• Panasonic 46-inch 1080p plasma HDTV, $788.
• Xbox 360 Arcade Console, $199 with $100 Walmart gift card (for use on future purchases). The company will stock at least 10 per store, which makes it sound as if you need to arrive early to get this deal.
• Sony Blu-ray player (model #BDP-S360), $148.
• Magnavox Upconvert DVD player (model #DP170MGXF, 1080p), $29.

Quantities are limited, no rain checks and there is a limit of two per customer on select electronics. While the Wal-Mart news release says these are one-week specials, the Web site says one-day specials, and it’s likely some will sell out quickly, so be prepared to shop Saturday if you want the electronics deals.

Does this mean you can skip that mad dash the day after Thanksgiving? Probably not, says Jon Vincent, founder of BlackFriday.info. “It won’t replace Black Friday,” he says. The deals are good, but pretty comparable to its offerings last year, including a $298 Compaq laptop and a Playstation 2 bundled with a $30 gift card for $129.

Wal-Mart also is offering 12-pound turkeys for less than $5 (that deal started Nov. 4), or 40 cents per pound. Limit two per customer. This deal is good through Thanksgiving.

Wal-Mart’s $20 Thanksgiving feast for eight includes:

• One 12-pound Grade A turkey.
• Three 11 to 15.5-ounce cans Green Giant vegetables.
• Two 14-ounce cans Ocean Spray cranberry sauce.
• Three 6-ounce boxes of Stove Top stuffing.
• One 5-pound bag of red potatoes.
• One 12-count package of Sara Lee dinner rolls.
• One 22-ounce pumpkin roll cake.

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Forbes 400: Poor, poor billionaires

Forbes 400: Poor, poor billionaires

Because of the recession, almost all of America’s richest citizens are less wealthy this year, Forbes’ annual report finds.
[Related content: rich, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Wal-Mart, Marvel Entertainment]
By Forbes.com

America’s superrich are getting poorer. For only the fifth time since 1982, the collective net worth of The Forbes 400, our annual tally of the nation’s richest people, has declined, falling $300 billion in the past 12 months, from $1.57 trillion to $1.27 trillion.
How to get rich

How to get rich

Faltering capital markets and real-estate prices, along with divorce and fraud, pushed down the fortunes of 314 members and drove 32 plutocrats off the rankings.

Warren Buffett (c) Getty Images

Warren Buffett
Hurt the most: Warren Buffett, America’s second-richest citizen. The Oracle of Omaha dropped $10 billion from his personal balance sheet as shares of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, news, msgs) fell 20% in 12 months. He is now worth $40 billion.

Beating out Buffett for the 16th straight year as America’s richest man is Microsoft (MSFT, news, msgs) co-founder Bill Gates. Sluggish Microsoft shares and declining outside investments pushed the software visionary’s net worth down $7 billion in 12 months. (Microsoft is the publisher of MSN Money.)

Rounding out the top 10 on The Forbes 400: Oracle (ORCL, news, msgs) founder Larry Ellison ($27 billion); Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, news, msgs) heirs Christy Walton ($21.5 billion), Jim C. Walton ($19.6 billion), Alice Walton ($19.3 billion) and S. Robson Walton ($19 billion); media maven Michael Bloomberg ($17.5 billion); and energy titans Charles and David Koch ($16 billion each).
Price of entry falls below $1 billion
The 10 richest Americans lost a combined $39.2 billion in the past 12 months, a 14% decline.

Kirk Kerkorian (c) Associated Press

Kirk Kerkorian
Other big losers include casino mogul Kirk Kerkorian, whose nest egg shed $8.2 billion in the past year. Shares of his gambling giant, MGM Mirage (MGM, news, msgs), have fallen 90% from their October 2007 high.

Also hitting the brakes: Enterprise Rent-A-Car founder Jack C. Taylor. His fortune is down $7 billion in a year as the travel industry has slowed and private-company valuations have fallen.

Andrew Beal (c) Matthew Mahon

Andrew Beal
The biggest gainer is banker Andrew Beal, who tripled his net worth to $4.5 billion by buying up cheap loans and assets as the markets crumbled last fall.

Membership on the list was made easier as the price of admission dropped $350 million, from $1.3 billion last year to $950 million this year, paving the way for 19 newcomers and 19 returnees.

Newcomers to the list include Marvel Entertainment (MVL, news, msgs) chief Isaac Perlmutter, whose net worth soared to $1.55 billion after Walt Disney (DIS, news, msgs) agreed to buy the superhero outfit in August for $4 billion in cash and stock.

Other new members include Bloomberg co-founder Charles Zegar ($1 billion), mapping-software magnate Jack Dangermond ($2 billion) and trading titan Steven Schonfeld ($1 billion).

New member with Madoff ties
Former New York lawyer and accountant Jeffry Picower makes his debut on The Forbes 400 with a net worth of $1 billion. A longtime investor with Bernard Madoff, Picower is likely worth billions more. (He is alleged to have extracted billions of dollars from Madoff’s fund before it collapsed.)

Video: Battle of the billionaires

For more see : http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Forbes/forbes-400-poor-poor-billionaires.aspx