Steve Schwarzman's 60th birthday party last year may go down as the last, great party before the fall. Days after closing on what was then the biggest leveraged buyout in history, the $39 billion purchase of Equity Office Properties, the billionaire chairman of the Blackstone Group invited 500 people to the Armory on Park Avenue for a party that cost an estimated $3 million. A very long list of notables turned up—Donald Trump, Barbara Walters, Barry Diller, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon—as did many of the people who have now become poster boys for the global financial crisis, like former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal, ex-Bear Stearns chief Jimmy Cayne. Rod Stewart was paid $1 million to perform for the assembled guests; Patti LaBelle sang "Happy Birthday." And the room was designed to replicate Schwarzman's $40 million co-op at 740 Park Avenue. So does Schwarzman have any regrets now the economy has crumbled and he was depicted as a real-life Gordon Gekko in the relentless press coverage that followed?

In the latest issue of Men's Vogue, Hud Morgan recounts a recent visit to Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano's club 1OAK, where he finds that despite the meltdown, everyone's still having lots of fun.

You think you're losing money in the economic meltdown? Talk to Indian-born billionaire Lakshmi Mittal. He's seen his net worth drop $28 billion in the last three months alone. Of course, he still has another $30 billion to his name, so don't go feeling too sorry for him just yet. [Times Online]

Warren Buffett, the world's richest man and the founder of Berkshire Hathaway, is planning to invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. That sound you just heard? That's Lloyd Blankfein exhaling. [NYT, WSJ]

Last week, Forbes annointed Michael Bloomberg the richest person in New York with a net worth of $20 billion. The Wall Street Journal offers up a handful of reasons today why he's probably not worth that much, at least after the events of last week: "If Bloomberg were publicly traded, its stock likely would have taken a dive this week... There are now two fewer investments banks buying Bloomberg terminals, not to mention the thousands of finance workers who also will lose their jobs—and their terminals—this year." [WSJ/Wealth Report]

Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans was published this week. Could the timing be any worse? More than a few people won't be seeing their names appear in the magazine this time next year thanks to the events of this week. But at least the notoriously inaccurate list has finally updated its estimate of Michael Bloomberg's net worth! He's now No. 8 on the list with $20 (Previously, Forbes misjudged his stake in Bloomberg LP, which the Wall Street Journal was more than happy to point out last year.) After the jump, the list of people in the New York area who made it on to the list, including some of the people who, in fact, live here despite Forbes's suggestion to the contrary. Stan Druckenmiller didn't pay eight figures for a Fifth Avenue penthouse and send his girls to Spence so he could stay behind in Pittsburgh!

Have you heard of Marina Deripaska and her older brother Pyotr? Probably not, since they're only five and seven years old, but rest assured we'll be hearing a lot more about them in the future considering they stand to inherit $20 billion each from their father Oleg, an aluminium magnate who is currently the richest man in Russia. Other miniature megabuckses listed on a magazine's "minigarch" league table include, naturally, Roman Abramovich's children by his second wife Irina. But because there are five of them, they'll have to somehow scrape by on an inheritance of barely a billion each, unless Roman gets his act together and makes some more money.

Who's that sleeping man, you ask? Why it's Mark Kingdon, founder of the $6 billion hedge fund Kingdon Capital Management, who took home $200 million in pay last year according to Alpha magazine. Kingdon has a rep for his philanthropic work (unlike many of his peers), but you'll be happy to hear that he's spending some of his riches, too. Kingdon, wife Anla, and their two kids Jessica and Jason just got back from a family vacation to Beijing for the Olympics. From the looks of it, it was a rather exhausting vacation for the demi-billionaire and his wife. But just look at the culinary delights they had the opportunity to feast on. Bet you Phil Falcone and Dan Loeb didn't eat that dish for dinner last week! The Kingdon family vacation after the jump.

It isn't always easy being a billionaire. Especially if you happen to be Russian. Sure, you've got plenty of cash and you can afford spectacular estates in the South of France. But then some snooty maitre d' refuses to give you a table at a restaurant and your vacation is ruined! Yes, it seems the outrageous ostentatiousness of these mega-rich Russian invaders has rankled locals in Italy and France and they're showing their disdain the best way they know how: by denying them entrance to bars and restaurants.

Could Michael Bloomberg now be the richest man in New York? Probably! Bloomberg LP is a private company, of course, and putting a price tag on the enormously profitable financial news giant has long been a challenge. It hasn't been any easier to peg Bloomberg's own net worth: Last year, after the Wall Street Journal suggested he might be worth as much as $13 billion, an embarrassed Forbes more than doubled his net worth from $5.5 billion to $11.5 billion, a reminder of just what a guesstimate the entire Forbes list really is despite their suggestions to the contrary.

This isn't shaping up to be an especially good year for New York's ultra-rich. According to Forbes, Moscow recently overtook NYC as the city with the most billionaires per square mile: Moscow had 74 people worth ten figures compared to New York, which had just 71. But those smarmy bazillionaires aren't staying put in Moscow or even in the de-facto Russian mogul ghetto of London. Many of them are spending time right here in New York: Real estate, oil, and metals scions from Russia and other former Soviet republics have been busy snatching up some of the most expensive apartments the city has to offer. Last month, a 42-year-old fertilizer kingpin named Dmitry Rybolovlev agreed to pay $100 million for Donald Trump's Palm Beach mansion, Maison de l'Amitié. The 59th richest man in the world, worth some $12.8 billion, his purchase includes a 33,000-square-foot home and 6.5 acres of land. But he isn't the only one. After the jump, a list of the novi Russki who spend time in New York—just who these Soviet oligarchs are, how they made their money, and what exactly they're up to in town.

O, hai! Had no idea that you, 23-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, were on the list of Forbes' richest people. But your net worth is... $1.5 bil? Forbes helpfully lists which of the men on its Rich List are bachelors. But don't get too excited: the thing about the rich is that they tend to be squirrely. And they'll make you sign a prenup, which is always a total bitch. Forbes has a slideshow of the billionaire bachelors, and as they saying goes: the odds are good, but the goods are odd. [Forbes]

Number 785 on the Forbes Billionaires list is one Mark Zuckerberg. Forbes estimates his net worth at $1.5 billion — a far cry from the $5 billion we pegged him at last year — but still a nice chunk of change. (We've since learned the actual number is $4 billion; he owns 27 percent of Facebook.)

It's like a party with an open candy store: Forbes published its whopping 793-member billionaire list, with all the maps, photos, and self-congratulatory interviews such an event requires. Above is a map of billionaires in the U.S. (the world is viewable here but why do you care about anything outside the Valley), which shows San Francisco as third behind New York and L.A. That's no good.

"My tax return in the United States has to be kept on a special computer because their normal computers can't deal with the numbers," said Bill Gates in Lisbon.