America touts itself as an egalitarian society. But the way we reward people suggests that while everyone has an equal chance to get rich, only about five people can make more than a billion in a year. The way these five people get there reveals what our society most values -- the ability to help people with huge amounts of money get much richer as quickly and consistently as possible.
Wednesday's New York Times listed those five most valuable players. Here are our society's biggest winners, where they work, how much they made in 2007, and how they won:
- John Paulson (Paulson & Co.) -- 2007 earnings: $3.7 billion. Beginning in 2005, Paulson made huge bets on the decline in value of securities backed by subprime mortgages
- George Soros (Soros Fund Management) -- 2007 earnings: $2.9 billion. Soros' $17 billion flagship Quantum Endowment fund racked up a 31.7% return in 2007, its best annual showing since the high-tech implosion at the start of this decade. Soros' $2.9 billion payday comes almost entirely from his personal stake in the fund (which he no longer manages). I don't know how he made that 31.7% return.
- James Simons (Renaissance Technology) -- 2007 earnings: $2.8 billion. Simons, a mathematician and former Defense Department code breaker, uses complex computer models to trade.
Why is gold making a new high, trading at $1,118.00 per ounce?
Chasing Value: Ten stocks for 2010 -- Part 1 
Closing Bell: A six-day rally (AIG, REGN, M, MOT, PALM, RIMM)
