Forbes October 28, 2013

It’s just a number, but it’s a big one. Last month Forbes.com hit a record 51 million unique monthly readers as measured by Omniture, a widely used industry reporting tool. Com-Score, another measuring service, puts our worldwide audience at 26 million. By either count the number of monthly readers has risen more than 200% from three years ago. The FORBES model for journalism in the digital era disrupts 100 years of traditional media thinking on how to cover the news. We have a core group of experienced, salaried reporters and 1,200 expert contributors (many part of an incentive-based program). They’re all building individual brands and communities under the FORBES umbrella brand. Just as unique is our BrandVoice advertising program. It offers marketers the same publishing tools our writers use to…

WHEN PRESIDENT OBAMA takes time out from stonewalling congressional Republicans over the continuing budget resolution and raising the debt ceiling to pick a nominee for the next Federal Reserve chairman, the U.S. Senate should be prepared to ask that candidate hard, critical questions and to reject the person if satisfactory answers aren’t forthcoming. To “stimulate” the economy our central bank, at the direction of Ben Bernanke, has undertaken unprecedented actions that have immensely harmed credit markets, thereby retarding recovery. They have the potential to inflict even greater damage on us and the world than the 2008–09 crisis. Without congressional authority the Fed has assumed enormous economic powers. Even worse, despite the Fed’s manifest failures before and after the economic crisis, Congress has granted it other powers that threaten our economic…

THANKS TO the government, U.S. banks are back on a solid footing. Return-on-average-assets, shown in the center of each bubble, and stock prices have rebounded impressively since the depth of the financial crisis. But trillions in stimulus spending has done little to revive banks’ core mission—lending money—with the ratio of loans to deposits still falling. The only thing that has consistently grown, in good times and bad, is bankers’ pay, represented by the ever-expanding colored circles.…

WINNERS Mark Zuckerberg +$4.7 BILLION NET WORTH: $23.5 BILLION As Wall Street’s infatuation with Facebook continues and the stock keeps rising, Zuckerberg makes his fourth straight appearance as a big gainer. Jeff Bezos +$2.6 BILLION NET WORTH: $29.8 BILLION Amazon trades at an alltime high as it introduces three new Kindle Fire models, while its founder officially takes control of the Washington Post. Phil Knight +$1.3 BILLION NET WORTH: $17.7 BILLION Nike’s stock soars after the company posts impressive quarterly earnings and is made part of the Dow Jones industrial average. LOSERS Micky Arison –$560 MILLION NET WORTH: $5.3 BILLION His holdings in Carnival, the world’s largest cruise company, tank with lower quarterly earnings and weak bookings—see “That Sinking Feeling,” p. 102. Richard Hayne –$180 MILLION NET WORTH: $1.6 BILLION…

STOCK OF his pharmaceutical company, Insys Therapeutics, has quintupled since its May IPO, catapulting him to billionaire-ship at 70. Insys produces drugs to alleviate cancer patients’ symptoms; he’s its founder and executive chairman, and his stake is now worth more than $600 million. He also owns more than $400 million of drugmaker Akorn. The first member of his family to go to college, he arrived in America from India in 1964. His career took off when he joined LyphoMed, a struggling pharma company, in 1978, worked his way up to general manager, turned the business around and sold his share of it in 1990 to net $100 million. He has been a serial entrepreneur ever since. “This is the country you can do it in. Nowhere else,” he tells FORBES.…

JOSEPH ABBOUD: The award-winning designer and entrepreneur got his start at Louis Boston before serving as director of menswear design for Ralph Lauren. He launched his namesake brand in 1987 and is currently the chief creative director for Men’s Wearhouse. KATHY IRELAND: The supermodel turned supermogul is the chief executive and chief designer of kathy ireland Worldwide, a design and marketing firm she launched in 1993. Women’s Wear Daily has named her one of the 50 most influential people in fashion. Before THE VERDICT JA: Driving people to a new product, you need to look a little more forward. This does that. KI: Now he’s the epitome of power dressing, rather than letting an overpowering outfit wear him. JACKET JA: The navy and the brass buttons feel a little nautical…