Billionaires want to build a new city in rural California. They must convince voters first.

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley billionaires behind a secretive $800 million land-buying spree in Northern California have finally released some details about their plans for a new green city, but they still must win over skeptical voters and local leaders.

After years of ducking scrutiny, Jan Sramek, the former Goldman Sachs trader spearheading the effort, launched a website Thursday about “California Forever.” The site billed the project as “a chance for a new community, good paying local jobs, solar farms, and open space” in Solano, a rural county between San Francisco and Sacramento that is now home to 450,000 people.

Rich Russians needing an exit strategy turn to Malta, where citizenship is for sale

The island nation of Malta lures millions of tourists every year with its dramatic Mediterranean scenery and historic sights, but increasingly it seems rich Russian visitors are attracted by something they can take with them when they leave — Maltese citizenship.

Malta has just published a list of its newest citizens, and it's striking for the number of wealthy Russians on it.  The list contains the names of the owners of Russia's biggest information technology companies, distilleries, real estate conglomerates and banks — more than 730 Russians in all.

A handful of ultra-rich dynastic families are bleeding the country dry — and destroying American democracy

White House National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, former president of Goldman Sachs, said recently that “only morons pay the estate tax.”

I’m reminded of Donald Trump’s comment that he didn’t pay federal income taxes because he was “smart.” And billionaire Leona Helmsley’s “only the little people pay taxes.”

Boris Johnson says super-rich are ‘put-upon minority’ like homeless people and Irish travellers

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has told people to stop “bashing” the super-rich, comparing them to hard-pressed minorities like the homeless, Irish travellers or ex-gang members.

Mr Johnson accused “everyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Nick Clegg” of bullying the group he defined as “zillionaires” – and said the most rich of all should receive “automatic knighthoods”.

Why We Must End ‘Upward Pre-Distributions’ to the Rich

You often hear inequality has widened because globalization and technological change have made most people less competitive, while making the best educated more competitive.

There’s some truth to this. The tasks most people used to do can now be done more cheaply by lower-paid workers abroad or by computer-driven machines.

Three Rich Treasury Secretaries Laugh It Up Over Income Inequality

Three of the world's richest and most powerful people (and Timothy Geithner) had a good laugh over income inequality earlier this year.

Former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson and Geithner were asked about the issue by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg during a conference in Beverly Hills. When Paulson responded that he'd been working on income inequality since his days at Goldman Sachs, Geithner quipped, "In which direction?"

How the Rich Can Keep Their Homes, Businesses, Artwork, and Wealth Tax-Free—Forever

It’s a common-sense notion that society’s wealth shouldn’t be governed by ghosts. “Our Creator made the earth for the use of the living and not of the dead,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. (Also: “One generation of men cannot foreclose or burthen its use to another.”) But in our new age of inequality—the top 10 percent now own nearly 80 percent of all wealth—old concerns about wealth and inheritance are coming back from the dead.

Americans have, historically, had a simple approach to dealing with wealth after its holder dies: You can do whatever you want with your property, but not for very long. Rich people can disinherit children. They can put extreme conditions on how their successors can inherit, like requiring marriage. They can build monuments to themselves or give everything to their pets. But they can only do it so long. Eventually, time catches up with them and their estates dissolve.

Forbes 500 List Reveals A Disturbing Truth About Our Economy

The Forbes 500 is still, as The New York Times described it in 1987, "a gossipy ranking of the country's richest people." Increasingly, those people are from the financial industry.

Finance -- banking, investing, hedge funds and private equity -- accounted for 14 percent of the world's 500 richest people in 2015, as listed by Forbes on Monday.

Canada's Millionaire Immigrants Earn Less Than Refugees

Canada's new millionaire migration scheme, the Immigrant Investor Venture Capital (IIVC) programme, appears to be dead on arrival. Authorities were last week forced to extend the application window after failing to fill a very modest quota of 500 applications worldwide.

But was the patient worth saving in the first place?

Wealth migration has drawn tens of thousands of rich Chinese to Canada recently and it has plenty of supporters here in Vancouver - real estate agents, some segments of the immigration industry, and those in the business of selling luxury goods and services spring to mind.

Doubling contributions to TFSAs is simply pampering the privileged

The Harper government gives five reasons why Canadians ought to be happy with its proposal to double the maximum contribution to the Tax-Free Savings Account. Examine each of its points more closely, however, and it’s clear that the TFSA carries far higher risks than rewards — for individual Canadians as well as for the economy as a whole.

The 10 Richest U.S. Presidents

The ongoing debate over income inequality has picked up steam, especially as the economic recovery is widely considered to be benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. In fact, President Barack Obama promised to tackle income inequality in this year’s State of the Union address.

Obama said that the key to the country’s success is “middle-class economics — the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” Income inequality will likely be a central issue in the 2016 presidential elections.

There's Going To Be A Gated Man-Made Private Island For Calgary's Rich People

Calgary developers have received the green light to build a gated community of 22 mansions on a man-made island in a fake lake.

Hopewell Residential's plan to add a gate to the pending development on its Mahogany Manor Island has been controversial. In 2001, Calgary's city council banned new gated developments, according to the Calgary Sun, picturing a more inclusive future for the city.

On Thursday, Calgary's planning commission rejected that ban and gave Hopewell the go-ahead to add a gate to the first of two planned island neighbourhoods, according to the National Post. City planners had recommended the commission refuse the request for the gate.

Pope Francis Slams EU's 'Opulence' And 'Aloofness' In Historic Parliament Speech

STRASBOURG -- Pope Francis has attacked the European Union's "opulent" and "aloof" leadership and institutions in an extraordinary speech to the Strasbourg parliament, the first from the pontiff in more than a quarter of a decade.

The historic address, which accused politicians of treating citizens not with "dignity and transcendence" but as "cogs in a machine", saw the Pope take the EU's handling of the economic crisis to task, saying it had forgotten how to talk about anything but economics and treat people as humans beings.

The Latest Debate Over Taxing the Rich Misses One Crucial Fact

Hard work. Technology. Globalization. Skills. Grit. These are just some of the reasons used to explain why the top 1 percent has more than doubled its share of the national income in the past thirty years. Whatever the cause, progressives have historically responded to inequality by advocating higher taxes on the wealthy.

Corporate Canada Pays Low Taxes But Contributes In 'Lots Of Other Ways'

Corporate Canada is often derided for not paying its fair share in taxes, but one of its top advocates argues that the corporate income tax rate doesn't give a full picture of how Canadian businesses contribute.

"Corporate Canada pays governments in lots of other ways. They pay different levels of governments, they pay property taxes and they pay a variety of fees and charges that in many cases actually exceeds what they pay in corporate income tax," said John Manley, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, in a feature interview with Michael Enright on The Sunday Edition.

Tech Millionaire Who Beat Girlfriend 117 Times Ducks Jail Despite Damning Video

RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence and battery charges last week, dodging 45 felony counts for the videotaped 30-minute beating of his girlfriend.

Chahal, 31, faces no jail time. He was sentenced to three years' probation, 52 weeks in a domestic violence training program and 25 hours of community service. The Internet mogul was arrested in August after police responded to a 911 domestic violence call at his San Francisco penthouse apartment.

Libertarians Plan to Sit Out the Coming Collapse of America…in Chile

Ken Johnson's Jeep crests a ridgetop on a dusty track a few miles off the private tollway that connects Santiago and Valparaíso, Chile. He gets out, takes a swig of beer, and gestures at the hardwood forests rising up to the craggy mountaintops. Below, Pacific coastal scrub stretches toward the lemon groves where cooks are roasting three lambs on an open fire. "Look at that, look at how majestic that is," Johnson says. "That is awesome."

Welcome to Galt's Gulch Chile, a libertarian refuge from the coming economic, social, and political collapse of the United States. The would-be free-market utopia, named after the mountain redoubt of the protagonist of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, is taking advance payments (Bitcoins gladly accepted) for parcels on its 11,000 acres.

Offshore assets of China's elite revealed in leaked records

Close relatives of China's top leaders have used secretive offshore companies in tax havens that helped shroud the Communist elite's wealth, according to a massive cache of leaked financial records, posing a formidable challenge for President Xi Jinping, the country's avowed anti-corruption leader.

The confidential files include details of a real estate company co-owned by Xi's brother-in-law, as well as British Virgin Islands corporations set up by former premier Wen Jiabao's son and son-in-law, plus dozens of more cases of people tied to high-level officials.

Moguls Rent South Dakota Addresses to Shelter Wealth Forever

Among the nation’s billionaires, one of the most sought-after pieces of real estate right now is a quiet storefront in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

A branch of Chicago’s Pritzker family rents space here, down the hall from the Minnesota clan that controls the Radisson hotel chain, and other rooms held by Miami and Hong Kong money.

Don’t look for any heiresses in this former five-and-dime. Most days, the small offices that represent these families are shut. Even empty, they provide their owners with an important asset: a South Dakota address for their trust funds.

Wealthiest People: Canadian Business Magazine Ranks The Country's Richest

It's been a good year for Canada's super rich.

According to Canadian Business magazine's latest rankings, the country's 100 wealthiest individuals clock in with a net worth of $230 billion.

As Canadian Business points out, that more than the gross domestic product of entire countries, namely New Zealand, Ireland and Portugal.