AS the numbers of redundancies mounts on Wall Street, the lists of its wealthiest just keep coming. And boy, are the wealthiest getting wealthier.

The latest list comes from Forbes, a magazine that usually acts as a cheerleader for the super rich. But even Forbes cannot resist pointing out the irony of the moment.

“Problems paying the mortgage, filling the gas tank and feeding the family have eroded living standards for millions of Americans during the past several months. Not so for people who manage big piles of money,” the article begins.

Topping the list of Wall Street’s 20 Top Earners is John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who bet big against the mortgage market. Paulson seems to be topping all the lists this year and Forbes has his 2007 pay at $3.3 billion (¤2.1 billion).

Paulson made his pile shorting the subprime mortgage market while investment banks including Merrill Lynch and Citi lost billions betting the other way.

According to Forbes, Paulson earned an estimated $2.3 billion from his share of fees charged to investors and $1 billion from appreciation of his own capital invested in Paulson & Co funds.

George Soros, the bête noire of the Bank of England, came in second earning $2.4 billion. Fund manager Philip Falcone ranked third with $1.7 billion after his bets against subprime credit resulted in a $11 billion boost for his two Harbinger Capital funds.

The problem with reading (or writing) about money these days is that the numbers are now so large it’s easy to get blasé.

When banks routinely lose money in the billions, “average” fund managers earn tens of millions and a small two bedroom Manhattan flats cost $1m, zero fatigue is inevitable.

In writing $3.3 billion, or worse still $3.3bn, it doesn’t look so big. Long form, $3,300,000,000 looks a little more like it, but it is still difficult to get across exactly how much money that is.

To get some perspective, the median American family earned $60,500 last year.

Every year, Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine puts out a list of top hedge fund earners. In order to make the top 25 this year, a manager needed to earn at least $360m, more than 18 times the amount in 2002.

Combined, the top 50 hedge fund managers last year earned $29 billion. One year’s wages would be enough to pay for the London Olympics with $9 billion in change.

One of the great things about America is its ability to create wealth, but the gap between the rich and the poor has been widening at an alarming rate.

Today more than 40% of total income is going to the wealthiest 10%, their biggest share in at least 65 years.

New York State has the biggest income gap. A recent study by the Fiscal Policy Institute found the average income of the top fifth of New York families is 8.7 times that of the bottom fifth.

The top 1% of New York City tax filers now receive more than a third of the city’s adjusted gross income.

The rich — like the poor — are always with us. But as they spin further and further out from the centre, can the centre hold?

dominic.rushe@sunday-times.co.uk

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