OK, I know some of us have disagreed on whether it's possible to earn $40k or $30k or what a teacher is worth. Let's put that aside.

Can we agree that this guy is a complete <insert insult here>?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7111098&page=1
Story is about a guy who made $750k and eventually had to take a job delivering pizzas.

Some may read this as: "ah see, the economy is so bad."

I read it as: this is exactly what I'm talking about. HOW can you spin this as a sob story? Guy makes $100k at a minimum for 20+ years, eventually climbing to $750k. Now, they have the nerve to run a sob story about how their "dream home" is in foreclosure and they are $100k+ in debt.

Give me a break. How could anybody have the least bit of sympathy for this person? The guy is in a giant house with a pool - and they are spinning it like "oh man times are tough". Are you kidding me?

Here is the way I look at it:
Anyone making $100k+ a year for more than 20 years should be in pretty sound financial condition. Think about it, if you're reasonably responsible, you should have at a minimum $1 million+ in savings. While that's not enough to live in the lap of luxury, it certainly would allow you to "make ends meet" for a few years while you pick up some other type of work. This guy was making $750k at one point. How could anyone make that much money and not be completely set for life?

And here is the other aspect - if someone has the skills to earn $750k, how can you possibly not find any other line of work that pays anything? If your skillset is so incredibly limited, how on god's earth were you EVER worth $750k a year? Rule of thumb - if you are in a job where you could not replace the job with 70% or more of your current salary - you should be seeking part-time education to safeguard your salary.

OK - end of rant. I'm dying to hear someone defend this dude.

Yep - economy and such aside - I've always wondered how people who have so much money can squander it all so quickly. I don't think I'd even know what to do with even one year of $750,000...maybe order a lot of pizza to make that guy deliver it all to me?

I think douchenozzle is the word you're looking for.

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Hope is the new black.

I certainly agree with you in general.



In some lines of work you are paid that much because you have a very specific set of knowledge / skills that can't be found elsewhere. When this is the case, if you get laid off you may not be able to find someone else that needs that particular set of skills.

Aside from...I dunno...Schmoozery or Asskissery, what skills could someone have in a major business that nets them that kind of pay that aren't useful elsewhere?

My mind was mostly thinking about technical work on some kind of little used software, or something to that effect. /shrug

I really wasn't getting that specific. I was just making a comment about the two different ways people end up getting paid a lot. One is because of a large variety of proven skills, and the other is because of a specialty in one particular skill that no one else has.

It is very much human nature to spend your resources.

Sure, there are some "savers" out there, but if everybody was a "saver", America wouldn't work.

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Fribur - that is a legit question that I asked myself as I was ranting.

But even if you are the senior engineer for noise reduction padding in a GE 8721 jet engine, shouldn't you be able to find entry level work in your field? This guy for example, was supposedly thinking he could run a hedge fund and was CEO of a company. Insurance companies constantly run "underwriter training programs" that start off at least $12/hour. There's no way he made an effort to get that sort of job or he woudl have gotten it SOMEWHERE.

Furthermore, if I understood right - he went TWO YEARS unemployed. He went TWO YEARS without paying his mortgage. After about 4-5 months, don't you take ANY JOB. Don't you sell your house or do something to deal with your problem before you wipe out EVERYTHING you have?

I wish I understood why - but this pisses me off so much. And, it is part of the reason I was so pissed off (and I feel misunderstood) in that other thread. I cannot comprehend how anyone could play this guy up as a victim.

If you have a job and are living the good life, don't you ask yourself in the back of your mind, "what woudl I do if I lost my job?" I dunno, but this fires me up.

The biggest problem for people who find themselves unemployed is pride. I took a couple months to find work after I lost my DBA spot when the bubble popped, because I hadn't hedged my bets with paper. (Certs and the like. Nobody gave a shit about my degree.) After two months on the dole, I decided that it would be better to earn my keep at something smaller and work my way back up. I should have done it on day one. After that, if I had spare money, I'd put some of it on those certs I was missing for insurance. I hopped into a counter position at a paint company, then a callcenter job, and am now trying to choose between three system admin positions who have all said they'd like me on their team. Just took a few years but I'm almost back to my earnings level before that rather shitty day several Christmases ago. If it wasn't for some recent medical issues, I'd have two months' wages saved too. I'll have to rebuild that soon.

In this case, I pretty much agree with you.

You're not paid 750k because you have a set of skills no one else needs. You're paid 750k because you're very much in demand other places and they have to pay you that much to avoid you going somewhere else. I could maybe believe your scenario for someone who makes 100-200k, but not when it's 750.

Then again, that begs the question, how could he not get a job doing ANYTHING?

Probably because he wanted to air his "sob story"

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Loved this:



It goes on to say that some kind hearted anonymous donor is covering their kids tuition. I have to agree with Orme, there is just something wrong with this picture.

It's hard to feel sorry for people like that, especially when they squander their money.

One thing I might take exception to is the common notion of "They're doing just fine and have nothing to cry about". There have been millionaires and billionaires that have committed suicide after finding out their net worth just dropped 75 percent. I think you have to look at these types of situations in perspective - and, granted, in most situations THEY also need to take a long hard look from a different point of view.

The thing to remember is that losing 75 percent of your worth, or your life's work essentially, is hard on ANYONE rich or poor. It's a massive self-esteem issue - and for them, I would imagine it has less to do with how comfortably they'll be able to live their life so much as it has to do with pride, dignity, and the fact that they've lost so much of what they earned.

I think it's easy to sit back and chuckle at the frustrated millionaires(I know that's not this case, just using it as an example for the point), but far harder to actually see it in the light that they see it in - and not all of it, IMO, is simple greed... more like drive and confidence in self-worth.

That kind of drive would find employment. Part of it is likely not wanting to move. Job prospects drop off sharply if you limit it to commuting distance.

The thing that I find annoying about these people is how obvious it is that their poor choices so obviously result from privilege. Only someone who hasn't ever been a paycheck away from disaster would consider draining their life savings to cover the start up costs of their own hedge fund. Any entrepreneur with a lick of sense knows that you never put up your own money.

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Hope is the new black.

I can't tell whether this is sarcastic or just completely out of touch. You need outside funding, but almost no one would lend a startup money if the managers didn't have any skin in the game.

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Knowledge without reason is useless.

http://boxrockssocks.blogspot.com/

Cool sig site Van!

When things get tough, you don't take a pizza delivery job to try to keep up to a lifestyle that is forever beyond a pizza delivery job income, what a putz.

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Jake Rivers - Senex Legio
Get off my Lawn alliance

At that level you'd think he'd rub elbows with someone in executive mgmt and use the boys club to get another mgmt position somewhere. Mgmt! where they stuff the people who cant do the work to keep them out of the way!