Do You Have to Be Unethical to Get Really Rich?

Hedge funds are the modern, ethical billionaires, says author and economist Sam Wilkin. "The hedge fund sector as a whole consistently underperforms the market," said Wilkin. That means, the good ones, or the lucky ones, are winning. There are a lot of hedge fund managers who fail. The problem is "a lot of the strategies people pursue are somewhat questionable, but often the ethics aren't as clear-cut as you would expect." Think about Carlos Slim, who had a monopoly on telecoms in Mexico; Wilkin says people like to think he did something unethical or wrong to get that monopoly, but the Mexican government was desperate to raise money from privatization.