Web Winners:

What is wealth, who gets it, and why? We went to the Web and found these sites for learning fundamentals of personal finance, some theories about wealth, and who has the most of it.

Building wealth.

An educational program of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, this site is meant to help people learn the basics of personal finance. It includes a video introduction by Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke.

http://www.dallasfed.org/ca/wealth/

index.cfm

Hedge hogs.

The aptly named Alpha Magazine last week listed the top earners among hedge fund managers for 2007 - an astounding collection of paydays, headed by John Paulson, of Paulson & Co., who reaped $3.7 billion on bets that the credit crisis would worsen. Second in line, with $2.9 billion, was George Soros, famous for criticizing the Bush administration and for backing the Democrats.

http://www.alphamagazine.com/

Article.aspx?ArticleID=1914971

Responsible wealth.

A group, United for a Fair Economy, that says it is dedicated to seeing that wealth isn't concentrated among the few, urges beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts to take a "tax fairness pledge," in which people vow to contribute "some or all of my tax savings to tax fairness organizing." Coincidentally, that's what the group does. An "EZ tax table" and calculator help you estimate how much of your income to send in.

http://www.faireconomy.org/issues/

responsible_wealth

Wealth blog.

When recession gloom overcomes you, check out the Wealth Report blog at the Wall Street Journal Web site. Recent tidbits include notes on the recent tumble in yacht prices, government bailouts for the wealthy, and the news that millionaires of the world hold a grand total of $50 trillion.

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/

Wealth of Nations.

Adam Smith might be appalled. His pioneering 18th-century classic on economics and capitalism,

An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

, is free online. Here's one place you can read it.

http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Smith/smWN.html