Boomers need to get a grip on reality

Bloomberg had an article on an economist who lost his job. The gentleman in the article seems like a good guy - my blog is not aimed at him and I don't want to send any jabs his way. He is clearly trying to re-establish he and his family's life post-credit collapse. The quote that really prompted me to make this post was this one:

"Roberts never earned millions from Wall Street. In his best years, he made $500,000, which provided scant cushion against prolonged unemployment or career upheaval. His salary is more representative than those of the chief executive officers and hedge fund managers who have been pilloried in congressional hearings.

Since when even in these high flying times has $500,000.00 per year not permitted someone to set aside some serious retirement money? I think this article really tells me how warped and unrealistic the entire financial services industry became prior to the crash. So let's say Mr. Roberts, again he is not the target of this article, made $200,000.00 per year. That amount is significantly higher than the following median salaries and shows just how far the financial services industry was completely beyond anything reasonable.
Median Salaries in the US according to PayScale.com (which is used by employers - so I multiplied the Median by 1.5 to try and adjust things up).

• Lawyer: $114,000.
• Sr. Software Engineer: $135,000.
• Office Manager: $58,000.
• Software Engineer: $96,000.
• Construction Project Manager: $104,000.
• Retail Store Manager: $62,000.
• Registered Nurse: $90,000.
• Vice President, Operations: $184,000.

Again keep in mind this is the median of a large sample size multiplied by 1.5 - so they represent very generous salaries. It is just shocking looking at the salaries earned in regular jobs compared with those in finance.

Now we have to face hardship and things seem to continue to get worse. Boomers - whenever we get to some point in development or face some situation - we act as though this is the first time anyone has been through anything similar. It is always about us. Soft, pampered, narcissistic are we.