No hedge required

Giant bonuses are alive and well in hedge fund land. Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies and John Paulson of Paulson & Co can boast 2008 pay packets of $2.5bn and $2bn respectively, according to Alpha magazine. Maybe capitalism isn’t yet dead – provided you make money for investors, are privately owned and don’t take government cash. These estimates probably overstate the case – especially because they count gains on the managers’ investments in their own funds. Even so, it’s pretty hard to s...