BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Eike Batista, chairman of Brazilian conglomerate EBX Group, predicted Monday that the price of gold will hit $2,500 an ounce.

Mr. Batista’s remarks came during a lunch-time discussion at the annual Milken Institute Global Conference. The panel was moderated by The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot.

Mr. Batista didn’t give a timeframe for his prediction.

EBX Group is a holding company that has operations in mining, energy and logistics. Mr. Batista is, however, no stranger to gold, having started off his mining empire during the Brazilian “gold rush” in the 1970s and 1980s, buying up gold produced by so-called garimpeiros, or wildcat miners, in the Brazilian Amazon, where he helped build up Canada’s TVX Gold Inc. operation.

Mr.

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From the buzz it generates, you’d think almost all small business owners would be actively involved in social media. But you’d be wrong.

This disconnect becomes clear in the latest Small Business Success Index survey conducted twice a year by Network Solutions (disclosure: they’re a client of mine) and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. While the SBSI showed an “almost universal awareness among small business owners of Facebook and Twitter” only 27 percent of the entrepreneurs used Facebook for business purposes, and a mere 7 percent were Twitter users. Linked In garnered 18 percent.

Despite the tepid survey results, Network Solutions is a big believer in the power social media has to impact business.

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If you’ve got a stack of debt sitting on a credit card racking up a lot of interest, switch it over to one of these cracking cards…

If you’re a regular reader of lovemoney.com, you’ll be very familiar with the term 0% balance transfer credit card.

The reason we so often bang on about these credit cards is because they are a great way of reducing the amount of interest you pay on your credit card. Most standard credit cards charge interest in the region of 16%-17%. In contrast, a 0% balance transfer credit card will allow you to transfer over a balance from an existing card and pay absolutely no interest on that debt for several months.

In fact, right now, the market leading 0% balance transfer card is the Barclaycard Platinum with 20 Month BT Visa which offers 0% interest for a whopping 20 months – so you won’t have to worry about the interest stacking up on your credit card debt for nearly two years! (Bear in

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NEW YORK — David Sokol, the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. executive who resigned last month, violated company policies and misled senior management about his personal investments, according to a report by the audit committee of Berkshire’s board of directors.

Sokol, who bought shares of a chemicals company shortly before recommending that Berkshire acquire the company outright, may face legal action from the Berkshire board to recover gains from the trades, according to the report, which was released Wednesday by Berkshire.

Sokol insisted in conversations with Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett and in public statements that his departure was unrelated to the stock purchases. On Wednesday night, Sokol’s lawyer, in a statement, took issue with the report’s conclusions and said the audit committee hadn’t contacted him.

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For the last week my inbox has been bombarded with pitches from businesses, large and small, helpfully informing me that April 22 is Earth Day, and explaining how their companies are commemorating the event. Don’t get me wrong; some of their products sound pretty cool, like the ecobutton from Staples promotional products, which, at the press of a button, puts your computer in “ecomode” (more energy-efficient than sleep mode).

I’ve learned some interesting facts as well. According to the folks at Nitro PDF Software, every person on the planet consumes about 123 pounds (or 12,500 sheets) of paper a year. Approximately 37 pounds of that is used just printing things out, which (hanging my head in shame) I admit I even did while researching this column.

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