Making money has long been pretty much a patriotic duty for Americans. Remember Edith Wharton’s Ralstons, those pillars of Old New York society who “had not come to the colonies to die for a creed but to live for a bank account”? And Americans have long loved to study those compatriots who had the greatest talent for bank account accumulation – sometimes in celebration, sometimes censoriously, but mostly in search of do-it-yourself case studies.

A lot of our attention is captured by the details of consumption – Rod Stewart headlining Blackstone boss Steve Schwarzman’s 60th birthday blow-out; Bill Gates’s multimillion-dollar ultra-wired home; former Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski’s $6,000 shower curtain.