That's the title of Jesse Taylor's post castigating Glenn and Helen Reynolds for having jobs with security and decent wages.
Jesse seems to think that such things are unavailable to the vast majority of people, but that's not true.
The fact that others don’t have the financial capability and planning capacity of Glenn and Helen Reynolds isn’t an indictment of everyone else’s ability to plan as much as it is an indictment of the fact that the kind of great jobs that let you plan like this aren’t readily available. I surely wish that the kind of jobs available in my hometown lent themselves to permanent guarantees of employment barring retirement or gross incompetence or unethical behavior. I wish that the kind of jobs generally available to people with high school, associates or bachelors degrees lent themselves to paying speaking engagements, subsidiary radio shows or publishing deals. I can’t help but think how great it would be if most of our jobs not only allowed us but were explicitly structured to allow us to pursue outside ventures in prominent and public ways, the nature of which may cause us to say things that our employers are uncomfortable with, but must accept. That jobs like these exist is great, because the people in them often provide vital scholarship and leadership to society.
Actually, jobs like that do exist for the rest of us, but most of us don't want to work in them. The median salary for a registered nurse (that is, a nurse with a bachelor's degree) is $61,603. No, that's not $200k, but it's far from poverty. And nurses have virtually guaranteed employment as long as they are not "grossly incompetent or unethical."
There are also air traffic controllers, who make a median $100,000, and aren't likely to be fired because of economic downturns.
I have family members in these fields, which is how I know about the marketability and job security of these career paths. But there are other similar jobs that make decent money with little instability.
Jesse's right, though. If you work at the mall or in an office, you probably don't have the same low turnover and higher salaries. But isn't that up to individuals to choose careers that suit both their aptitudes and their lifestyles?
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