It would seem that the land that worshipped the get-up-and-go of entrepreneurship and has always admired rather than resented the self-made man is increasingly jealous of what it dubs the 'two comma' ($1,000,000) and 'three comma' ($1,000,000,000) crowd.

Some Britons will have heard of Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com. But who outside the US would recognise C. Everett Koop or Todd Krizelman? They both have their 'two commas' — the latest American shorthand for millionaire status — after floating their infant Internet businesses on Wall Street.

Uncertain as the free-agent waters still are, history in baseball and football indicates that a player performs at least as well during his option year as he does after signing a long-term contract with two commas.