Billionaire George Soros has made a big move for climate change. Recently in Copenhagen he announced that he will commit more than $1 billion of his estimated $13 billion fortune to clean energy investments and political efforts which help to benefit the environment. The money could help startups with an eco focus get much needed money to go forward at a time when venture capital is at a major low. Analysts say that Soros will likely focus on "mezzanine" investments helping relatively mature startups with some proven success get to the next level. Soros is a savvy investor and this isn't strictly an altruistic move. He says that he is looking for opportunities that will be both profitable and "make a real contribution to solving the problem of climate change." Soros also pledged $100 million over a 10-year period to the Climate Policy Initiative, a foundation created "to protect the public interest against special interests."

If you've watched ABC's Shark Tank show you know that no two sharks are alike. Each has their own strategy for dealing with the aspiring entrepreneurs. Some are harsh, some are kind, some are dismissive. Kevin Harrington is the quiet one. He doesn't say much but his focus of gaze is, well shark-like as he listens intently, sizes up the prey and makes his move.

Our sister blog WalletPop has been covering the show through recaps and a series of After Shark interviews with both the sharks and those brave enough to face them, hat in hand. WalletPop editor-at-large Jason Cochran was kind enough to pass on our questions on to Kevin Harrington and as usual his answers were precise and quick.

What do you think is worth spending money on, even if it's expensive?
Industry trade shows in Europe: London Germany, Mote Carlo... Flights, meals and hotels are expensive but it opens your business to many international oppotunities.

What do you think people often spend too much money for?
Christmas parties

Is there anything you collect?
watches

Is there anything you used to dream about before you struck it rich that you now indulge in?
nice cars

What was the first big purchase you made that let you know you'd really 'made it'?
A multi-million dollar home purchase.


What piece of jewelry or accessory do you always wear if you want to impress?
My bling bling watches...LOL

Where's your favorite vacation destination to get away from it all?
Pink Sands Hotel in Harbor Island Bahamas.

Could the wealthiest people in the U.S. really giving be giving up their citizenship to save money on taxes? Wealth Bulletin has a report that says that some wealthy Americans who live abroad are so determined to shed the yoke of American taxation that they are willing to surrender their U.S. passports. The U.S. tax laws require those living outside the U.S. to continue to pay taxes on worldwide income no matter where they live.

Those who do choose to leave will be subject to something known as the exit tax. The exit tax affects both US citizens who expatriate and long-term US permanent residents who give up their green cards which they have held for eight of the last 15 years. Those who qualify for the exit tax have a net worth of over $2 million and an average net U.S. income tax liability of greater than $139,000 for the five year period prior to expatriation. Those who want to leave pay a one-time tax on gains over $600,000. Isla Offshore Advisor has more of the salient details including the fact that the tax is due 90 days after giving up your citizenship. Right now, when just about everyone's net worth is lower it is seeming like an opportune time for many to take the leap.

Wealth Bulletin quotes Jay Krause, a partner at private-client specialist law firm Withers who says he's seen a rise in those interested in expatriation lately. This number may increase in the wake of a crackdown on clients of UBS AG. The Wall Street Journal reports that lawyers representing UBS clients think that the bank will reveal names associated with 5,000 to 10,000 accounts.

Wealth Bulletin paints a dramatic picture in which the ultra-wealthy elude possible taxes by staying on their yachts and cruising outside coastal waters. Just how many of these yacht-borne rich renegades are there? It is estimated that there could be a few thousand of them keeping trillions of dollars away from global tax authorities. Those who decide to pay the U.S. exit tax would then become former U.S. citizens and would be able to travel to the U.S. without facing more taxes. Around 90 people gave up their citizenship in the first half of 2009 so lets not call this a mass exodus yet.

[Thanks, Ben!]

Although prices on prime residential property are down all around the world,it's still not easy to buy on the world's most expensive streets. Avenue Princesse Grace is the once again the most expensive street in the world to buy property, where $120,000 gets you just one square meter (around 11 square feet) of prime real estate. This is down from $190,000 for one square meter last year.

The latest survey by Wealth Bulletin found that overall the prices of residential property on the top 10 most expensive streets in the world were down by 12 percent. Prices on European streets were steadiest. Of the top ten, the only street on the list that saw property prices go up was Via Suvretta in St. Moritz. The Swiss street was in sixth place with a price of $45,000 per square meter which represents an 18 percent rise since 2008.

The second most expensive street was Chemin de Saint-Hospice on Cap Ferrat with a price of $100,000 per sq/m. New York's Fifth Avenue comes in at third with a price of $72,000 per sq/m followed by Kensington Palace Gardens in London at $65,000 per sq/m. The Parisian street that includes the Harry Winston shop which was robbed last year, Avenue Montaigne is next at $54,000 per sq/m. Via Romazzino, Porto Cervo, Sardinia makes the list for the first time with $42,000 per sq/m. Severn Road, The Peak, Hong Kong is on the list at $40,000 per sq/m which represents a huge dip from last year's $121,000 per sq/m, which had this street in the second slot last year. Moscow is on the list with Ostozhenka Street at $35,000 per sq/m and rounding out the top ten is Wolseley Road, Point Piper, Australia with a price of $28,000 per sq/m.

The list is similar to last year's list. Only Via Romazzino in Sardinia and Chemin de Saint-Hospice on Cap Ferrat are new. Bumped off the list from last year were Carolwood Drive in Beverly Hills and Altamount Road in Mumbai.

If you want to hang with the wealthy you might want to head to Hawaii. Phoenix Marketing International has announced the results of their latest study which shows that Hawaii remains the state with the largest percentage of millionaires per the overall population. In the Aloha State as in most everywhere else, the amount of millionaires has diminished over the past year. They led the list last year with 7.26 percent of the population and continue to dominate in 2009 with 6.4 percent of Hawaii's households being worth $1 million or more in investable or liquid assets, (excluding sponsored retirement plans and real estate).

The other states in the top five are Maryland (6.3 percent), New Jersey (6.2 percent), and Connecticut (6.2 percent), an order of ranking unchanged since 2008 with Virginia sneaking into the top five at 5.5 percent, displacing Massachusetts which is now in sixth place. Since this list ranks the percentage per population the smaller states have a better shot at making it to the top.

Where can you find the lowest percentage of millionaires? That would be Mississippi which has owned the bottom spot for the past four years and hits a new low this year with 3.06 percentage of the population being millionaires. The state with the most millionaire households is California with 662,735 or 5.28 percent of the population. The complete list is available as a PDF download here.

Coming this summer: more guilty-pleasure TV! Joan Rivers will host TV Land's "How'd You Get So Rich?" There are still millionaires out there, and Rivers hunts them down and "leaves no stone unturned in getting to the story behind the moneybags who walk, or rather drive their Ferraris, among us. In this funny and engaging series, she searches the country to find out how wealthy people got that way and, more importantly, how they spend their money. It's an escapist fantasy and an inspirational tale for these tough times."

TV Land hints that those profiled are more likely to have made their money inventing products than through hedge funds or the market. Premieres August 5 at 10 p.m.

You gotta hand it to Jay-Z. Despite taking a 57% pay cut -- down from $82 million in 2008 to $35 million in 2009 -- he's still the Hip-Hop Cash King, according to Forbes. (Cash Queens, aka the women, can be found on their own list, which focuses on all women in music, not just in the hip-hop genre.) Diddy squeaks in as the #2 cash king, with $30 million, and Kanye West is #3 with $25 million. Both of these gents also are down several million from last year.

Many of the artists on the Hip-Hop Cash Kings list earn a good chunk of their income through licensing and endorsements, but gone, at least for as long as the economy is uncertain, are one-time mega deals in the $100 million-plus range. This is what knocked 50 Cent out of first place in 2008 down to #4 this year, with "only" $20 million.

In Pictures: Hip-Hop's 20 Top Earners

A couple years ago, the world marveled at the rate at which the ranks of millionaires swelled. Now we are watching them shrink. A new survey by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch & Co. shows that the amount of millionaires shrank at the fastest rate on record in 2008. The number of millionaires sank by 15 percent to 8.6 million basically undoing the gains of the last two years. Millionaires saw their assets diminish by 20 percent down to $32.8 trillion.

The survey also shows that we won't have to wait to long to see the financial wealth of Asia-Pacific millionaires eclipse that of North American millionaires. By 2013, as the value of millionaires' assets globally are rising again, China and other nations will be ruling the roost. Currently the U.S. is home to the most millionaires and last year China moved into the fourth slot behind the U.S., Japan and Germany. The U.S. also lost more millionaires last year, the number fell by 19 percent. Dan Sontag, president of Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management says that 55 millionaires are being created in China every day.

What's particularly interesting is that almost 30 percent of wealthy clients surveyed either took assets out or left their wealth management firms entirely in 2008 and 46 percent report that they confidence in their advisers. These types of numbers seem to indicate that a profound shift in the wealth management business might be required. In a press release Bertrand Lavayssiere, Managing Director Global Financial Services, Capgemini says that the research shows that "while client satisfaction remains a top priority, many wealth management firms and advisors may not fully understand what drives clients to leave or stay." He calls for firms to look at their capabilities to "ensure simplicity and transparency" in their business.

Last week, I sat down with representatives from American Express Publishing and Harrison Group to see a presentation and discuss a question which is on many of our minds: How are the wealthy reacting to the recession?

Well, to start with, more than half (53%) are worried they could run out of money. Dr. Jim Taylor, vice chairman of Harrison Group, and Cara David, senior vice president of corporate marketing and integrated media of American Express Publishing spent approximately an hour display charts that showed the results of countless hours spent crunching the first-quarter responses of 1,300 Americans with discretionary incomes over $100,000 (that means income after tax, mortgage, home maintenance, and child education costs are subtracted).

This year there are 120,000 fewer households that fit in that range.

Of the 1,300 moderately-to-very wealthy Americans surveyed, 70% believe that the recession will last longer than a year, and 35% think this could be a long term depression. 78% report that the crisis has affected their sense of financial security.

So how does the spending look? "Luxury is not dead, there's simply a filter on risk," says Taylor. 77% said they are buying fewer "big ticket items" this year -- so it's a safe bet that they're buying brands they trust. There seems to be a trend among the wealthy of pride in their willingness to not buy things. This goes beyond the usual chatter of talking about great bargains you got; people are actually feeling an increase in their self-esteem related to their ability to take control of their own lives. Believe it or not, spending less is making people happier. People checking the "Very Happy" box went from 58% last year to 66% this year -- women up 10%, men up 4%.

Following the luxury surveys lately is getting increasingly confusing, a response perhaps to the uncertainty in the marketplace. The overall consensus seems to be that hopes for better days are alive, they just remain off in the distance a bit. The most recent survey of affluent consumers from Unity Marketing shows results similar to the ones we saw recently in the Bain's "Luxury Goods Worldwide Market" study which is that recovery is coming, it's just not coming too quickly.

Unity Marketing's Luxury Consumption Index reports a modest uptick of 1.5 points in their latest survey of affluents (average income of $207,000). While luxury consumers are still cutting back on spending they do feel more optimistic about the future of both their personal finances and the country's economic recovery. Many of the 1,034 people surveyed said they see a recovery coming within the next twelve months.

What will happen to the luxury goods industry remains to be seen No one knows if the current climate of austerity is permanent. Tom Bodenberg, Unity Marketing's chief economist thinks that luxury consumer spending could rise as a response to the recent enforced wallet tightening. But he also says that the media's focus on "recession chic" could continue to have an effect on the perception of conspicuous consumption. The best possible scenario for luxury goods businesses is that 2009 is a reverse of 2008 which had a strong first few months and then a sudden and deep decline.

The slide in the luxury goods market is set to continue for a bit longer. That's the data to be gleaned from the semi-annual update to Bain's "Luxury Goods Worldwide Market" study. The study shows that the luxury goods market will experience a 15-20 percent decline during the first two quarters of 2009 down from 170 billion euros in 2008 to about 153 billion euros this year.

But the study does see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. It predicts that the luxury market will start to even out in the second half of the year ending up with a net decline of 10 percent for 2009 overall. Like other studies, this one looks to China and the Middle East for signs of hope, seeing a projected growth of seven percent in China and two percent in the Middle East.

Overall all luxury shoppers are feeling more tentative and spending less. Luxury, however, remains a stratified industry with several different types of spending behavior. The lower tier of luxury consumers switching to less expensive brands and the more affluent luxury shoppers switching their focus to the intrinsic quality of materials.

My colleague Deidre Woollard just reported that the number of millionaire households in the U.S. has shrunk to its lowest level since 2003. To that we can now add that the number of billionaires in the world has also seen a steep decline.

According to Forbes' newly-released annual list of the world's billionaires, there are now only 793 billionaires around the globe, down from 1,125 a year ago. That means 332 people lost their billionaire status.

This year the exclusive group has an average net worth of $3 billion, down 23% in 12 months, making for a loss of some $1.4 trillion. Americans now account for 44% of the money and 45% of the list's slots, up 7 and 3 percentage points from last year, respectively. Some billionaires have fared better than others, though most have lost masses of money.

Bill Gates lost $18 billion but regained his title as the world's richest man with a $40 billion fortune. Warren Buffett, last year's No. 1, saw his fortune decline $25 billion as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell nearly 50% in 12 months, and is in the No. 2 slot with $37 billion. Mexican telecom titan Carlos Slim Helú maintains his spot in the top three but lost $25 billion, and is now worth $35 billion.

Over the past few years the number of millionaires has been rising but that trend has ended in a big way. A new report "Affluent Market Insights 2009," released by Spectrem Group indicates that the number of millionaire households in the U.S. has shrunk to its lowest level since 2003. In 2008 there were 6.7 million households with a net worth of $1 million or more, not including the primary residence. This number represents a dramatic drop from 9.2 million just a year before.

And it's not just the millionaires. The number of ultra high net worth households, those with a net worth of $5 million or more not including the primary residence, dropped 28 percent to 840,000 in 2008, down from 1.16 million in 2007. Meanwhile the affluent households, defined as having $500,000 or more in net worth not including the primary residence, also declined 28 percent in 2008 to 11.3 million, down from 15.7 million in 2007.

My colleague, Jared, highlighted Forbes' Richest 400 this past September including billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Michael Bloomberg. Now, Forbes has released interesting information about this elite group's tax responsibilities. It seems even though the top 400 make the most money they are not paying the highest percentage of taxes. The following numbers are based on the IRS' 2006 figures and the IRS' ranking of the top 400 (although there is a lot of overlap between the Forbes' 400 and the IRS' 400):

• The Top 400 only paid an average of 17% of federal income tax
• 17% is the lowest tax bite in the fifteen-year period of this group's IRS statistics
• In contrast, the top 5% pay an average of 21% of federal income tax and the top 1% pay an average of 23%!

You can read more of the financial details here but that synopsis just goes to show...its good to be at the top.

Istanbul wasn't the only place indulging in a flamboyant display of wealth this weekend. The Expo Grand Luxe took place in an exhibition hall on the outskirts of Brussels. Like the Millionaire Fair, the Expo Grand Luxe offered lavish booths with items such as space flights, jewelry, real estate, boats, fine foods and exotic vehicles like the Spyker car, designed by Maarten de Bruijn from the Netherlands. The timing may seem off but the event was planned over a year ago.