Those with aspirations of unfettered wealth look for clues everywhere. From top schools to unique talents, they build profiles of what it takes to become absurdly wealthy ... as though the process can be blueprinted. Well, if you're looking for answers, the Forbes 400 list is a great place to start. If anyone has mastered the art of making money, it's this collection of billionaires. They have the answers, and you are ready to learn.

A look at the lives of the Forbes 400 implies that the most important attribute is the ability to sift through ambiguity. Contradictions abound, meaning that shades of gray hold the answer to your burning desire for riches. Should you go to a great school? Well, yes ... but only if you're going for an MBA and plan to work for a major financial firm. But, you can still go to an Ivy League school if you're not studying finance but join Skull and Bones. Of course, dropping out of Harvard can be a great way to launch a career in the technology field.

It's tricky. There are no easy answers. But, the road to billions is littered with the corpses of aspiring magnates who thought it wouldn't be difficult. So, don't just read the seven attributes after the jump. Understand them. Read them twice. Then, your future financial situation will be assured.

Or, you can just do one of those chain e-mails and wish for wealth.

[Thanks, Forbes and MSNBC]

So, you think you had a rough year? Check out what happened to Warren Buffett, who is ranked the second-richest man in America despite a drop of $10 billion in his personal wealth during the past year. The culprit for Buffet's loss is the 20% decline in Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) stock during the past 12 months.

As noted, the Oracle of Omaha maintained his second-place ranking on the list of the richest Americans. The first-place finisher is Bill Gates, who the article notes is "Buffett's friend and bridge partner." What a game of bridge that must be (I am not familiar with the game, but if there is betting involved I don't want to be sitting at that table). Gates maintained his top spot although he lost $7 billion.

Forbes laid off almost 20 people to save money. It is putting its online newsroom and print writers together. Yesterday, McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MGP), the publisher of BusinessWeek, cut several hundred people. US News, which used to have a strong business and personal finance section, is going from weekly to monthly to save money. There are rumors in the market that SmartMoney, a joint venture between Dow Jones and Hearst, is losing money.

The horrible thing about all of this and the layoffs at business sections of newspapers, is that the reporters who work the business and financial beats are writing their own obituaries. As they chronicle the demise of print media, the slowing of Internet advertising, and deepening recession, they have to go to work every day hoping that they will not find a pink slips on their desks.

What happens to these people?. They will not find jobs in the traditional media, but there is a model in the newspaper industry that may given them some hope. In many cities where dailies are struggling to survive and layoffs are plentiful, out-of-work writers are banding together to start websites to compete with the local press. Setting up these websites is cheap. The reporters already know their subjects as well as anyone else. They only need very modest ad revenue to do relatively well.

Business reporters may go the same route. Look for a lot of new, smaller financial websites to open staffed by laid off writers and watch them give the traditional press a run for its money

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7wallst.com.

Four hundred financial blogs. Who knew there were so many? Perhaps they have come of age now, at least as commercial entities. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Forbes Inc., was set to announce Monday that it will start selling ads this spring for about 400 financial blogs."

It is an open question as to whether Forbes can make money. Some of the larger blogs in the network are still tiny. Take Xconomy, one of the blogs Forbes is pitching. According to measurement service Compete, only a little over 18,000 people visited the site last month. Another site in the network, Talking Biz News, is too small to be measured by Compete or Alexa, another audience measurement firm.

If Forbes can pull together 400 sites with 5,000 visitors a month, however, it can have a network with two million visitors. And that's a lot.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Among investment gurus, Ken Fisher is undoubtedly one of the best. The Only Three Questions that Count is one of the best investment books to come out in recent memory, he has put together an amazing track record with Fisher Investments, and he's even on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans.

So why, Ken, must you promote yourself with all the subtlety of a late-night no-money-down infomercial guru?

Just once, I would like to be able to log on to Forbes.com without having to smash my speakers to silence your pitch for your firm.

I feel like a lot of serious, smart investors skip Ken Fisher because they're so turned off by the incessant marketing... we associate that kind of relentless pitching with charlatans, which Ken Fisher is most certainly not.

So the purpose of this post is two-fold: if you haven't read Ken Fisher's book, you really ought to go buy it. It's 58% off on Amazon. And if you're Ken Fisher, please consider hiring a new, more nuanced marketing firm.

Last week Forbes released its annual list of the fastest growing tech stocks, and it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) topped the list, with nearly $15 billion in sales, representing five-year sales growth of 155%, and 30% EPS growth. To make the list, companies had to have significant sales growth over the past year and five years, as well as a good earnings forecast for the next three to five years. Companies with significant legal problems or corporate governance issues were excluded.

Rounding out the top five were Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), Ceradyne Inc. (NASDAQ: CRDN), Euronet Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: EEFT), and FalconStor Software Inc. (NASDAQ: FALC). Some other familiar names that made the list this year include Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT), L-3 Communications (NYSE: LLL), Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE), and Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ: CTSH). Cognizant has been on Forbes list since its inauguration six years ago. For the full list, see the Forbes article.

Also of interest was the Forbes Fast 15, companies that didn't make the list mentioned above, but which Forbes thought were worth keeping an eye on for their potential. Engineering software maker Ansys Inc. (NASDAQ: ANSS), semiconductor maker Atheros Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHR), Brubaker BioSciences Corp. (NASDAQ: BRKR), and scoreboard maker Daktronics Inc. (NASDAQ: DAKT) top that list. For the full list, see the Forbes article.

So if, like Aaron Katsman, Georges Yared, and Jim Cramer, you are bullish on tech stocks, then there's plenty on the Forbes lists worth taking a look at.

If you live in Philadelphia's Society Hill, Atlanta's Grant Park, or Dallas's University Park, (and if you're the type who doesn't pay much attention to what's going on in the world), you might be tempted to ask, "Housing slump? What housing slump?"

That's because you live in one of the most lucrative neighborhoods in the U.S., as listed by Forbes. Neighborhoods in 15 major metropolitan areas made the list because they experienced the greatest increase in home sales prices since 1990 -- between 300% and 4,000%. Many were downtrodden areas that benefited from an influx of development. A few others were already among the most upscale neighborhoods in the nation, and have thus far resisted the recent housing slump. For example:

• Bucking the Florida real estate downturn is Miami Beach's City Center, with its mega-mansions with built-on docks. The 2006 median home sales price was $1.64 million, up 1,532% since 1990.
• Chicago's Wicker Park benefited from an influx of young urban professionals and rehabbers. The 2006 median home sales price was $575,525, an increase of 1,870%.
• San Francisco's Western Addition neighborhood is among the fastest growing in U.S. The 2006 median home sales price was $1.38 million, an increase of 522% since 1990.
• New York's uptown neighborhood around 149th Street and Riverside drive features large brownstones and federal townhouses. Its 2006 median home sales price was $774,708, up 4,391%.

See the article at Forbes.com for the complete list.

I was browsing through Forbes.com, taking a look at the Secrets of the Self-Made 2007. And there, staring at me, is possibly the ugliest comb-over ever. Yes, Forbes has chosen Donald Trump to be the poster-boy for self-made wealth.

Isn't that like putting Pamela Anderson on the cover of a magazine about all-natural ways to look good?

In his excellent book TrumpNation, Timothy L. O'Brien exposes The Donald for what he is: A charlatan born with his who has screwed banks and shareholders out of millions of dollars after ventures he's spearheaded have collapsed. His father was a major player in the New York real estate industry, and Trump used those connections to become a self-styled mogul.

Does that sound self-made to you? Couldn't Forbes have picked someone who really is an inspiring Horatio Alger story?

According to an article in yesterday's New York Post, the Forbes family-owned media business may come onto the market within the next two years, either as a direct sale or in an IPO. Last year, the family formed Forbes Media, including the namesake magazine web site, and affiliated properties, and sold off a minority chunk of it to the Bono-led private equity firm Elevation Partners. That deal was rumored at $250-$300 million for a 40%+ stake.

Forbes has done better than most in transitioning to the internet, pulling in over 12 million visitors to its web site per month, according to Compete.com, very near the readership of the Wall Street Journal web site. According to the Post, Forbes Media is currently valued at around $750 million, meaning half-a-billion dollars of equity could be up for grabs.

The move would be consistent with the family's ongoing divestiture of Forbes assets. In July, it announced the intention to sell the Manhattan headquarters that long served as Forbes headquarters. The building was not part of the Elevation Partner's purchase. It is expected to bring as much as $140 million.

If you're like many Americans you view rappers as negatively as thugs or gangsters, you're going to be surprised with the amounts of money some "gangsta rappers" are puling in.

A video recently appeared on Forbes.com which broke down the earnings situation among rappers. According to Forbes, Sean Carter (AKA Jay-Z) pulled in about $34 million last year due to his latest album, Kingdom Come, and his entrepreneurial pursuits.

According to the Associated Press, rapper 50 Cent earned roughly $32 million last year with his G-Unit record label and clothing line. 50 Cent should top the list next year as he cashes out of VitaminWater for $400 million -- a topic covered by our own Zac Bissonnette here.

Other prominent rappers on the list included Diddy ($28 million), Dr. Dre ($20 million), and Eminem ($18 million).

One has to begin wondering if rapping about the ghetto will grow old. It seems like many of the well-known rappers makes 500-10,000 times what the average American makes. Not so ghetto anymore, yo.

More Vitamin Water news

Beth Gaston Moon: High school vending machines getting more eclectic
Zac Bissonnette: PepsiCo plans a lower-calorie Gatorade
Jonathan Berr: Coke, Pepsi thirst for profits from bottled water
Zac Bissonnette: Experts doubt Snapple will satisfy Coke
Zac Bissonnette: Will Coca-Cola gulp down Snapple?
Joseph Lazzaro: Coke's catching up in the health drink segment
Zac Bissonnette: Coke swallows Vitaminwater
Zac Bissonnette: Coke wants vitamin water
Zac Bissonnette: Coke Zero is no zero, it's a big hit
Sarah Gilbert: Fuze acquisition pits Coke v. Pepsi in ritzy juice war

Those of you who have been reading BloggingStocks regularly know that I'm a frequent critic of USANA Health Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: USNA), the multi-level marketing company that has been under attack by critics led by ex-con turned fraud investigator Barry Minkow.

Now Forbes has joined the chorus of critics. With a story that has sent the stock down more than 7% today, Forbes raises questions about the viability and legality of Usana's business model. The author, Evelyn Rusli, reiterates New Zealand's National Business Review's report that the company is being investigated by the FBI.

Nothing much seems to have changed. Usana still has no idea why their auditor left but CFO Gil Fuller has become philosophical: "Life is too short to dwell too much on it."

In addition, the piece states that Usana may be in breach of the covenants on its credit facilities as a result of its extremely aggressive share buyback program.

Despite the fact that virtually all of Minkow's allegations have turned out to be true -- and the fact that Usana hasn't really rebuked a single one specifically -- the company keeps up the personal attacks and diversions: "We believe everything he says to be false," Usana spokesman Joseph Poulos told Forbes.com. "He's a liar; he's a criminal -- he can't be trusted."

Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about Usana.

Forbes magazine needs a good map or two.

The business magazine's article "America's Wildest Weather Cities" lists two places that don't exist. Blue Hill, Mass, dubbed the windiest city, is incorrectly described as a Boston suburb. Actually, there is a place called Blue Hill, The Blue Hill Reservation, a 7,000-acre state park that seems lovely. The Web site lists its address in Milton, Mass. There is no town named Blue Hill in the Boston area, according to the Greater Boston Convention and Vistors Bureau.

More embarrassing is the description of Springfield, Mississippi. I could find no town by that name in Mississippi although there is a Springfield Plantation near Natchez which reviewers on Yahoo Travel seemed to like. Even odder, though, was that Forbes describes Springfield as "a slightly elevated city in the Ozarks at 1,266 feet." As this helpful map on Wikipedia shows, the Ozarks don't go into Mississippi. Interestingly, there is a city in Missouri named Springfield that happens to be located at an elevation of 1,266 feet and is known as Queen of the Ozarks. Perhaps, Forbes was thinking of that Springfield or the one where the Simpsons reside.

Though I hate to spoil today's company holiday at Forbes, there is a bigger issue at stake here. In today's age of instant communication, readers need to be more skeptical now than they ever have been. Wrong information can be spread with an alarming speed.

Should Forbes have caught these errors before the story was published? Of course. But the news gathering and writing process isn't fool proof. Mistakes, though unfortunate, are unavoidable. No one is perfect.

But what separates journalists from people who just post stuff is how they deal with errors when they are pointed out. I've contacted the reporter who wrote the story and will let you know if I get a response.

Update: Forbes has corrected the errors.

Sometimes you tap a nerve. My Sears post June 29 opened the floodgates on disgruntled Sears' customers. Sears Holdings Corp. (NYSE: SHLD) has been in the news a lot lately, especially yesterday, when shares fell 10% on news that the company wasn't optimistic about earnings for the quarter ending Aug. 4 in the face of an increasingly ugly retail environment.

With all eyes on Sears, there are many thoughts percolating out there on what the giant retailer can do to "make itself more relevant." I spoke recently to Richard Hastings, a senior retail analyst at Bernard Sands, about what he thinks Sears can do to fix its retail business these days. All involve spending money, but Sears has lots of cash on hand.

According to Hastings, Sears can do the following to help bolster its retail.

• Battle for the brands. Sears can spend to beef up its noted brands, in particular the Kenmore brand of home appliance and its Land's End brand of family apparel. "There's been an erosion of marketshare in appliance, says Hastings, with Big Box retailers like Best Buy cutting into the business. Can it do this in the face of the tanking housing market and attendant falling home appliance sales?
  

• Identify the best. Sears can provide increased investment in its best-performing stores, remodeling outdated look, improve staffing levels, and improving the all-important check-out procedure. It wants to lure customers in, but help them get out quickly and easily.

The 2005 IPO of Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) was the "most successful ever in the footwear industry in terms of raising money," notes quantitative analyst Vahan Janjigian.

Indeed, says the editor of The Forbes Growth Investor, "The company has turned 'ugly' into a favorable feature that along with their reputation for comfort have helped boost sales by 236% in the latest quarter."

He notes that the company's tremendous success is due to the popularity of its clog-like sandals with their distinctive air holes and toe-box ventilation system. He explains, "Made from Croslite, a proprietary closed-cell resin that molds to the contours of the feet, these shoes offer an exceptionally comfortable fit."

Croslite, he points out, is lightweight, waterproof, and slip and odor resistant. The shoes became a hit with beachgoers and boaters despite their unusual look, he notes. Further, he adds, "Sales growth exploded as they gained popularity with the fashion conscious and then the mass market."

Janjigian notes, "Their unique appearance, which some call ugly, made them easily identifiable and probably added to their appeal." The shoes, he notes are now available at more than 10,000 locations in the U.S. and can be purchased in more than 8,000 locations in 80 other countries.

I was privileged to read an article in my latest Forbes newsletter which addresses honesty in business practice. Most especially, the article points out the inherent value that clear, honest book keeping and deliberate management transparency impart upon any business. To illustrate its point, Forbes utilized the analysis of Audit Integrity, an independent Los Angeles firm that does research on corporate governance best practice (and which is a data supplier to Forbes.com). Audit Integrity developed its first list of 100 companies which exhibit the highest degree of ethical and business standards when dealing with their investors.

What brings the value of Audit Integrity's analysis closer to home is the cross reference of stock performance as relates to inclusion on the integrity list. Forbes reports that the group of 100 companies that made Audit Integrity's list of good guys provided an overall return of 33% on shares, double the return of the market on average. Forbes cites higher equity growth, reduced litigation costs and a reduction in regulatory interference as some of the reasons why the wonderful one hundred out performed their peers.

So, if you want to simplify your hunt for stock value and reduce your research burden, you might want to give the Audit Integrity list of 100 do gooders a long hard look. In this game of stock picking there are a lot of angles to consider. If Audit Integrity is willing and able to provide a clear pre-assessment of business integrity in such a comprehensive and easy to understand format, I think you owe it to yourself to consider the data. Investment based on information devoid of even a cursory view of honesty in business practice is investment made blind.