Wealthy People

"A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king!" said no less an authority than Emily Dickinson. That's license for gourmands with pockets as deep as royalty's to pack an extravagant picnic and head for the beach. We asked Norbert Wabnig, right, owner of the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, for a few pointers on how to put together an over-the-top basket of afternoon snacks. His shop, a fixture since 1967, carries 500 to 600 varieties of cheese.

The economy is screeching to a halt and the housing market is melting down, but Gerald and Sue Vickers were popping champagne Wednesday at Lido Marina Village in Newport Beach, christening the 70-foot yacht they described as an impulse buy. With customers such as the Vickers -- five-time boat buyers -- business was expected to be brisk at the 35th annual Newport Boat Show, one of the fanciest yachting get-togethers on the West Coast.

It's become a familiar story line: Thousands of California teachers face layoffs and school districts statewide are scrambling for survival under the governor's threat of a $4.8-billion cut in education spending. But not in Laguna Beach. That's because the four schools in the 2,900-student district are funded primarily by property taxes collected from the affluent community, essentially insulating it from the state's economic emergency.

The rich may indeed be like the rest of us. Prices of their homes are now falling too. Gated mansions and hillside estates have held their own through most of the real estate slump, but data released Monday showed big drops in the region's most exclusive neighborhoods. Median sale prices fell by 13% in Beverly Hills in April, compared with the same month last year.

China's central government Friday ordered its wealthier provinces and cities to give immediate financial and technical aid to communities devastated by last week's earthquake. The order, which pairs cities such as Shanghai and Beijing with less-developed areas in Sichuan province, highlights China's awareness of the enormous task ahead, of rebuilding entire towns and resettling about 5 million displaced people. Banks were ordered to forgive debts owed by earthquake victims.

In Beverly Hills, a 32,000-square-foot beaux-arts mansion that will be sheathed in Portuguese limestone and adorned with gold-plated doorknobs fashioned in France is rising on Sunset Boulevard. A few miles away in Bel-Air, businessman Eri Kroh has requested permits to lop off the top of a hill, fill in a canyon and then, after moving some 68,000 cubic yards of dirt, replace the chaparral-covered lot with a 30,000-plus square-foot single family home with Pacific Ocean views.

If you're feeling steamed at the airlines for how they've been treating passengers, you might want to save some outrage for those who fly on private jets, two advocacy groups suggest. As most travelers endure long security lines, increasing flight delays and extra charges for checked baggage, they are helping subsidize far more elegant travel for a privileged few, according to a report to be released today by Washington-based organizations Essential Action and the Institute for Policy Studies.

No, no, no, he assured one of the businessmen buying the ailing Manchester City soccer club. The price tag for the British team wasn't $4 billion, but a mere $400 million. Anil Bhoyrul, editorial director of Arabian Business magazine and a confidant to some of the Persian Gulf's super-rich and powerful, thought the Abu Dhabi investor would be pleasantly surprised. He was wrong.

Money or no money, Eduard Strizhev wanted his Porsche. Stocks were collapsing downtown; the airwaves groaned with grim economic news; Russian finances teetered on the back of slumping oil prices and a global credit crunch. But why dwell on dreariness? Strizhev and his wife strolled serenely over the polished floors of the Porsche showroom, signed a few papers and drove off in their brand new Cayenne. Sure, Strizhev's accounting firm drew fewer clients this month.

IN certain ZIP Codes, hocking a pair of Tiffany diamond studs is as hush-hush as a tummy tuck. That's certainly the case at the Beverly Loan Co., where the process couldn't be more discreet and dignified. No skittish neon signs or grimy display cases here. Instead, there's a Picasso in the waiting area and bottled water to help wash away the bitter taste of the current economy.