American Rich Keep Getting Richer

A group of 25 hedge fund executives in 2010 managed to earn a combined $22.1 billion — an amount equivalent to 441,400 American households each making $50,000 a year (roughly the current average).

This is one more example that the gap between the super-wealthy in the United States and the rest of Americans is growing wider and wider.

Considering that the median household size is 2.6 persons, that means that these 25 took home as much as the average of 1,150,000 Americans combined. That is bigger than the population of Dallas…or Rhode Island.

HIGHLIGHTS

Ten years ago, the same 25 Wall Street barons would have taken home a total of $5 billion. Now, a single hedge fund chief, John Paulson, was able to make that much ($4.9 billion) in 2010. Allgov

Paulson made billions during the worst of the financial downturn because he bet that the mortgage bubble would burst. Most of his profits in 2010 came from investing in gold, buying and selling stock in Citigroup…and collecting an estimated $1 billion in management fees. Allgov

“So many of these guys are killing it on the management fees,” said Bradley H. Alford, chief investment officer of Alpha Capital Management, which invests in hedge funds. “You can’t feel good giving 30 percent of your returns to some guy who was up single digits. That has to give you indigestion.” NY Times

FACTS & FIGURES

The hedge fund industry as a whole did not do better than the stock market last year, the HedgeFund Intelligence Global Composite Index, which tracks nearly 4,000 hedge funds around the world, had a median gain of 8 percent in 2010, trailing the 11.7 percent rise in the MSCI World Index of stocks and the 12.7 percent rise in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. NY Times

The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year in terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Investorshub

Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. Investorshub

While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes increased by 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. Investorshub

All the growth in recent decades-and more-has gone to those at the top. Investorshub

Source article can be found here.

P.S. And the American tea-party goyim say 'we don't need no stinking national healthcare'.