Just because Forbes Traveler didn't end up folding on Friday doesn't mean the company is doing okay. In fact, Forbes laid off 43 employees and shut down Forbesauto.com, as well as their conference division.

And even more cuts may be along the way, as Steve Forbes sent a memo out to staff today announcing the merger of the sales division of Forbes and Forbes.com. And that's just the business side!

Hidden in all the pleasant office jargon of Forbes' memo was a scary prediction:

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Last year, Bono decided saving the world wasn’t enough of a fruitless venture and got involved in publishing. With Elevation Partners, Bono bought into the Forbes family empire last year.

It turns out, Bono is a shrewd investor. Elevation Partners has been cutting expenses at Forbes, like getting rid of its Greenwich Village HQ, selling its helicopters and downgrading its yachts. It’s likely that Bono and Elevation will cash out in a few years after raising Forbes’s value.

One insider said that Steve Forbes financed his 1996 and 2000 runs for the Republican nomination with money he took out of Forbes. Even Bono could have told him that a narcissistic presidential run would have been a bad investment.

Imagine you are an editor at Forbes, spending the past 20 plus years with the mag, only to get some lame title like "editorial director of radio and television." And imagine Graydon Carter comes along with an offer to join his new establishment, and take over the media one newsstand at a time. Are you really going to turn it down because some new money magazine might want you more?

No.

So who can blame Peter Newcomb, the Forbes "veteran" who will be joining VF as a senior articles editor?

Carter invented Vanity Fair's New Establishment list 12 years ago when many of the tech, info and entertainment figures on the list were in fact startling new faces of power and influence.

Now the New Establishment is in many ways the establishment.

"I want to bring it up to date, expand it and change," said Carter. Next year, the list will double in size to 100 names.

Seriously, did Joanne Lipman or Steve Forbes even have a New Establishment list? We thought not.

GIVING THE BUSINESS [Keith Kelly, New York Post]