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Whatever you do, don't tell my mom about John Webber. He's an English guy who had hung onto a cup that his junk dealer grandfather bought in the 1930s. One day he took it out from under the bed and decided to get it examined. It turns out to be made of gold, about 1,700 years old, and decorated with the face of a Roman god. He got $100,000 at auction.

The reason I don't want you to tell my mom about this guy is that this is exactly the scenario she thinks will happen with every mug she has ever bought at a garage sale, each "collectible" she keeps stashed in cabinets and even the old eight-track player that she cannot be persuaded is worthless. It's stories like Webber's that keep houses full of junk.

Also, Webber is now in his 70s. I don't know what his family or financial situation is. I'm sure he could use $100,000. Who couldn't? But I'm also pretty sure that the money would've made a bigger difference in his life if he had examined the cup when he was saving for a house, sending a kid to school, or starting a business.

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As far as pop star phenomenons go, Miley Cyrus, aka Destiny Hope Cyrus, certainly is one. At just 16 years of age, the bright personality of this moderately talented female offspring of Billy Ray Cyrus has been effectively parlayed into a several-million-dollar property by none other than media giant Disney (NYSE: DIS). She is being exploited in classic Hollywood style, right down to her "morning after" bed sheet clad, Vanity Fair photo shoot. Smile pretty baby, and say cha ching!

The question is, how much is Miley Cyrus really worth? With earnings of $25 million from June 2007 to June 2008, Cyrus is listed as #35 on the Forbes Celebrity 100. Somehow though, that figure seems just a bit misleading. With concert appearances that have tickets selling out in minutes, a hit television show, multiple albums, movie deals, guest appearances, and a host of other deals pending, it's virtually impossible to place a true monetary value on the girl. It is speculated that the Hannah Montana franchise, which features Miley Cyrus, will net Disney in excess of $1 billion. The Baltimore Sun recently reported that Miley Cyrus is currently out-earning names as big as Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston. Her concerts are reported to be out-drawing Bruce Springsteen. Who's the boss now, baby.

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Everybody likes an underdog, but especially me -- I'm a die-hard Cincinnati Bengals fan, after all. So, heading into the 2007 football season, I had quite a soft spot for New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning. His older brother, Peyton, had just led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl victory. Meanwhile, cranky New York sports fans were calling for Eli's head due to his rather spotty performance behind center. As far as Archie's boys go, it wasn't hard to pinpoint Eli as the underdog.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the Super Bowl. The Giants nearly upset the undefeated New England Patriots in their last regular-season game, and then the Boys in Blue went on to score unexpected playoff victories against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Green Bay Packers. Suddenly, Eli Manning was following in big brother Peyton's footsteps and preparing for a final showdown against the (still undefeated) Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

Going into that fateful championship game, it's probably a safe bet to say that most of the football universe was rooting for the Giants. By this point in the season, the Patriots had embarrassed nearly every team in the NFL once or twice, and sports fans were thirsty for vengeance. As a result, the Eli Manning fan club swelled to proportions never before seen.

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The recent release of Beyonce Knowles' Sasha Fierce album has garnered the singer, song writer, and producer her fifth number one hit song. She also has two motion pictures coming out soon, Cadillac Records and Obsessed, and will go on a world tour in 2009. That should considerably increase her already sizable earnings.

I don't own any of Beyonce's albums, but after listening (and watching) her AOL Sessions version of "Irreplaceable" a few times, I plan to put one on my Christmas list. Which one should I ask for, Beyonce fans? Her second solo album, B'Day, which has "Irreplaceable" on it, or her new double-album?

I also plan to see Cadillac Records, in which she plays the legendary Etta James. The New York Times says her performance is impressive. In the interview, it's clear that Beyonce has designs on being legendary herself.

At 27, Beyonce certainly is well on her way. And she is clearly a money winner this year -- Forbes estimates she pulled in $80 million between June 2007 and June 2008, ranking her the top celebrity earner under 30. But with her album, tour, movies (not to mention her clothing line and endorsement deals with Pepsi and L'Oreal), next year could provide even greater riches.

Beyonce made our Money Winners for 2008, but she looks like a shoe-in for our 2009 list as well.

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Lots of people thought real estate was overpriced. Many worried that banks were giving out mortgages too cheap. But what did you do about it? (Either to help the situation or to make money.) Jeff Greene, a real estate mogul in California, actually found a way to bet against the subprime mortgage folly. He made $450 million -- at least that was the count earlier this year.

Well, he didn't just think of it on his own. He basically took the idea that his friend, hedge fund manager John Paulson, had. Paulson thought that, as an individual, Greene wouldn't be able to do this complex a transaction. According to the Wall Street Journal he even used special software so investors in a hedge fund Paulson created just to exploit the subprime crisis couldn't pass on his strategy.

How Greene and Paulson made money involves two financial terms you've probably had to learn this year and never want to hear again. Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are the way mortgages are packaged and sold to investors in various slices of risk. Credit default swaps are the holders of those investments insured themselves -- by buying what was like unregulated insurance from one another. The credit default swaps are what got so many big companies in trouble -- they had to pay up on investments that went bad. So Paulson shorted CDOs and bought some credit default swaps.

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Barack Obama became the king of fund raising in 2008, having received a record amount in donations for his presidential campaign in the neighborhood of $750 million, and finishing with over $100 million in the bank. These contributions factored into a winning, grass-roots campaign strategy.

Actually he used a two-prong approach that enabled him to tap into the existing Democratic fund-raising machine attracting large donors through various traditional means, such as banquets and A-list parties. At the same time he was able to play the role of outsider and underdog to rally his grass-roots support among the young and commonly disenfranchised, handshake by handshake, and through a very adept use of the internet. The internet provided a constant source of connectivity with his followers, and allowed his team to respond to any news item with immediacy.

Now, president-elect Obama will be hoping to continue to amaze as he is tasked with guiding a devastated economy on the brink of collapse back to some semblance of equilibrium.

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This past year has been a pretty rough one for CEOs in general. The stock market has tanked since October of last year, dragging down strong companies' share prices to some extent and weak companies' even further. It has been even worse for most financial executives, who have been ousted as their stocks fall to roughly zero and their company goes bankrupt or is taken over by a stronger institution. While many of these CEOs have golden parachutes that open upon their dismissal, much of their compensation is in the form of the company's stock and when that value dwindles, they feel the pain as well. One of our other 2008 Money Winners, Alan Fishman, who walked away with more than $11 million for three weeks work at Washington Mutual, had 600K shares of WM that he saw evaporate.

James "Jamie" Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), has not had this kind of trouble over the past year, which places him squarely in the minority among his peers and makes him a money winner. Strictly speaking, Mr. Dimon raked in a salary for this year of "just" $1 million. His bonus allows for an additional $14.5 million, and the way things have been going for JPM, I'd wager a hefty portion of my savings that he gets the full amount. Plus on top of that, he has exercised options worth about $40.1 million this year, bringing the grand total compensation to $55.6 million.

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Many of the names on our list of 2008 Money Winners are entertainers, athletes, or businessmen who are on the top of their game. Michael Phelps, Tina Fey, and subprime profiteer Bill Ackman are all examples of this kind of winner. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon has gotten credit as being one of the few executives to keep a large financial institution from feeling too much pain in our current financial meltdown. However, Alan Fishman, who gained notoriety as the last CEO of Washington Mutual, is not any of those kinds of winner.

Instead, he wears his crown as a result of being in the right place at the right time. He replaced longtime WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger during the first week of September of this year. WaMu was seized by federal regulators just three weeks later and the banking assets were sold off to JPMorgan. Thus ended the less-than-spectacular reign of Mr. Fishman.

Fishman was paid just under $20,000 a week before taxes, which is a nice salary if you can get it, but is not nearly enough to land you on our list. However, he also got a massive signing bonus of $7.5M, plus 612,500 shares of WM. Since that stock is worthless now, we will only count the cash. He also had a golden parachute attached to his back and, unless he was fired for cause or voluntarily resigned, he was due to get another $6.15 million. Things get fuzzy when you look at his target annual bonus, which was set at $3.65 million. Since the company disappeared under his watch, I would hope he got none of that bonus, but I can't find any concrete evidence for how that matter turned out. When you total it all out, Mr. Fishman pocketed somewhere between $11 million and $18 million for his three weeks on the job. Wow.

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Hedge fund managers weren't the only ones making buckets of money during the great boom of the early 21st century. So too were the artists whose work the newly rich love to buy. And no one has made more money selling paintings and sculptures to private equity bigwigs and Russian oligarchs than British artist Damien Hirst.

Until recently, Hirst was famous largely for his conceptual sculptures of dead animals floating inside glass-walled boxes. Much of his work displays an obsession with death, including a human skull encrusted with 8,000 diamonds and a box filled with flies feasting on a rotting cow's head. And his art isn't cheap. The asking price for the skull, titled "For the Love of God," was $100 million.

But like all modern visionaries, Hirst saved his greatest innovations for the marketplace itself. In the summer of 2008, Hirst organized his own art auction, neatly bypassing the dealers whose commissions typically claim a good chunk of the sale price of a piece of art. Sotheby's hosted the sale, waiving its usual fee to do so. Over 20,000 people viewed the show in just two days, and when it was over, Hirst had sold $198 million worth of art, a new record for a single-artist auction.

Hirst's profits may be puny compared to the financiers who buy his work, but $200 million in two days is a pretty good haul by most standards. And it sets the bar higher for the next generation of artists who create the shiny trophies that billionaires so love to collect.

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At one time or another, we have all dreamed of turning pocket change into millions. A California man actually made it happen last February, though, when he sold a collection of 301 pennies for $10.7 million. Of course, they were not just any pennies. The set contained virtually every variety and subvariety of U.S. cent minted in the classic period between 1793 and 1814. Van Nuys resident Walter J. Husak had been assembling his early coppers for 28 years and estimated that they cost him a little over $5 million. That is a lot for a coin collection, but it ultimately netted him a profit of close to $200,000 per year and that is a return anyone can appreciate.

As with any investment-minded collector, Husak was doubtless torn between the desire to put together a complete collection of early cents and the hope that they would increase in value. He chose the path that usually finds the best equilibrium between aesthetic satisfaction and monetary gain by going high end. He acquired attractive specimens in the most advanced grades possible, very often locating the finest known examples of given varieties. That led to ownership of coins like the 1793 and 1794 "about uncirculated" specimens shown below, which sold for $632,500 each. The pictures are from the Husak Collection catalog, produced by Heritage Auction Galleries.

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Tiger Woods returns to our Money Winners list this year despite a season shortened due to an injury and being let go as a General Motors spokesman. He won four of the six PGA tournaments he entered this year before bowing out with an injured knee. Paul Rogers, a veteran golf writer, who has written for Travel + Leisure Golf, GOLF Magazine, and Links Magazine, who I interviewed via e-mail, called that, "an unheard of rate of success by any current player's standards except his own."

That record made him golf's second-biggest prize winner despite his short season. Rogers says, "To give you a better sense of this
accomplishment, the top money winner on Tour this year, Vijay Singh, competed in 23 events." Rogers also mentioned that Woods is currently designing three golf courses in the Dubai desert, the mountains of North Carolina, and in Mexico's Baja, Calif., for a reported design fee of $25 million each.

Golf Digest magazine estimated in its February issue that by 2010 Woods could be the first athlete to reach $1 billion in earnings. He earned $123 million total in 2007 for total career earnings of $769 million, according to the magazine.

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They called her Caribou Barbie. Saturday Night Live lampooned her mercilessly during the presidential election. The media elite denounced her as an idiot and a right-wing loony tune. But Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not going to fade into the snow of the beautiful state she governs. In fact, she is coming to a book store near you.

Media reports indicate that the former vice presidential nominee is expected to earn $7 million to tell her life story to a ghost writer. That's not too shabby considering that former president Bill Clinton got about $11 million for his life story and he actually was the leader of the free world. Barack Obama and his former rival John McCain both have earned big money from their books, so why shouldn't Palin.

There was also some talk during the campaign about a talk show or reality show starring the woman responsible for giving Tina Fey's career a boost -- as if it really needed one -- but that seems to have gone nowhere.

Palin, though, will have the last laugh on her naysayers, including me. During her brief time in the spotlight, Palin transformed herself from an obscure politician to a cultural icon. Along the way, she infuriated many voters and charmed more than a few. The power of Palin's celebrity will entice people who may not agree with her politically to buy her book. Her devoted fans will line up at the bookstores to buy it as well. Palin's tome has the makings of a best-seller.

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Johnny Depp is one quirky thespian. Whether he's playing a Gothic mutant with scissors for hands, a sadistic throat-slitting barber, or one wacked-out pirate who sounds a lot like a drunken guitarist from one of the greatest rock 'n roll bands of all time, Depp works overtime to extract as much weirdness from a part as he conceivably can so he can present a compelling performance to paying audiences at the local multiplex. And he gets paid pretty well for his services.

In fact, he's set to earn multiple millions of dollars to appear in a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. That's right, if you thought Disney (NYSE: DIS) was thinking of stopping at the third one (like maybe it should), then you turned out to be wrong. It's difficult to say exactly how much Depp will make from the next Pirates adventure. The Movie Blog claims that the number is as high as $75 million. I've read other reports that confirm this figure, but I've also read speculation that the value relates more to the potential of his earnings power in terms of gross participation, merchandise, etc. In other words, it might be reasonable to assume that Depp will earn as high as $75 million if Pirates 4 is a huge box-office hit on the level of its predecessors. He may, however, receive a lesser amount upfront. I believe the latter to most likely be the case based on the way Hollywood works. We unfortunately will never know the specific details because the SEC does not require public media companies to report talent compensation (in my opinion, they should). No matter what, though, he'll be grossing a lot of bucks when he returns as Captain Jack Sparrow.

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Think you could live comfortably on $23 billion? That's what each of the four Walton heirs live on today thanks to the company built by their father or father-in-law Sam Walton -- Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). Walton heirs were beat out by only three other billionaires for the top spot on the Forbes 400 Richest Americans list in 2008 -- William Gates, Warren Buffett, and Lawrence Ellison.

Only two of the Walton heirs have anything to do with the company from which they get their riches. S. Robson Walton is chairman of the board and he has served on the Wal-Mart board since 1978. Jim Walton is a member of the board, which he joined in 2005. Alice and Christy Walton, who are not involved in the running of Wal-Mart, do get the richest women in America title thanks to their Wal-Mart holdings. The Walton heirs recovered from a rough spot in 2006 when their stock holdings dropped to $18 billion and they fell to 17 to 20 on the Forbes list.

So who are are Walton heirs?

Jim Walton ($23.4 billion and #4 on the Forbes list), son of Sam Walton, is 60 years old and married with four children (future Walton heirs). He lives in Bentonville, Ark., and chairs the Arvest Bank Group. He got his BA at the University of Arkansas. He joined the Wal-Mart board in 2005.

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It wasn't like Michael Phelps hadn't done well for himself by the time he got into the swimming pool at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He was pulling in between $4 and $5 million a year after winning six gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics. And was already a sports marketer's wet dream, so to speak.

But then he went and broke Marc Spitz's 36-year record by winning eight gold medals, and the real race was on: to break out as the first $100 million Olympian.

Or at least that's what his managers and agent were saying. Measuring the precise wealth of sports stars is something of an art. Most of their great wealth comes from corporate endorsement deals, which are often heralded more as approximations than exact hard figures.