Selling Them Short

Cummings found such wealth to be "a staggering amount of money -- and I'm not knocking you for it." He'd better not: A good amount of it goes to Democratic campaign accounts.

"My question," Cummings said, "is whether this is fair. A schoolteacher or a plumber or a policeman makes on the average of $40,000 or $50,000 a year, yet they had to pay 25 percent tax. You make $1 billion, yet your rate can be as low as 15 percent."

"Our tax situation is fair," replied John Paulson, said to have taken home $3.7 billion last year from Paulson & Co.

Griffin suggested that the congressmen think of him as Philip the Chef, not Philip the Hedge Fund Manager. "If you and I were to start a restaurant together, and I was to be the chef and operator, and you were to put up the capital . . . I will get long-term capital gains."

Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) was not satisfied about "your analogy about the restaurant," because "the money you earn for being a chef gets taxed at a regular-income rate." Tierney argued that "when you're managing other people's money, you're in effect the chef of that process."

"Well, let's go back to the story of the chef," Griffin proposed after more back and forth.

"I just don't want to take the chef analogy too far," Tierney cautioned.

All the talk of plumbing and cooking must have made James Simons ($2.8 billion from Renaissance Technologies last year) thirsty. He was working on his second bottle of Deer Park bottled water when he interrupted the proceedings with a request of the chairman.

"I'd like to excuse myself for a moment; I'll be right back," he said.

Even masters of the universe must answer calls of nature.