Recently published obscenity in the media (SFW)

I can’t get this story out of my head.

On Wednesday, I happened to read a story in the International Herald Tribune on the income of hedge fund managers. It turns out that the top 50 managers collectively made $29 billion. The top manager, John Paulson, made $3.7 billion last year.

Think of it. $3.7 billion. Net. In one year.

Now, to put this in perspective, to make $3.7 billion in a year, you would have to rake in over $10 million per day, for 365 days. Or $1.35 million per hour of a “working man’s day.” How about $375 per second?

This dude made more money in one year than the entire GDP of any of 58 countries last year. I’m not sure that I’d want to brag that I made more money than the Central African Republic, but less than Kosovo. But I could say that I made more money than Monaco and Liechtenstein put together. Now, that's class!

Setting aside the ethical and moral issues around one person making such a horrendous amount of money, how can once conceivably spend it all? I dunno about you, but think I could get by with a few million a year – maybe less, who knows – but how would I spend the rest? Event if I was to keep $100 million for myself, what do I do with the remaining $3,600 million?

Well, maybe I could by a basic Toyota Prius ($29,000) for everyone in who lives in in the city of Nepean, where I live (population ca. 123,000) with enough money left over to buy everyone a tank of gas.

If I was feeling really philanthropical, I could buy 30 kilos of rice (at $0.50 per kilo) for every man, woman and child in the Philippines and Bangladesh. Think of it. Thirty kilos of rice for 245,000,000 people!

And this is the amount of money Paulson made IN ONE YEAR.

I can’t help but think that there is something seriously wrong with our Western capitalist system. Capitalism reminds me of Science. There’s nothing wrong with the system itself, but I think there is something seriously wrong with the values of a group of people that get plugged into the system.