When I was a kid it was fashionable to think that your mother wanted you to grow up and be a doctor, a lawyer or some other such professional. A policeman or fireman was dangerous, a sanitation worker did not have much prestige. By the time I was in college, the smarter kids were going to work on Wall Street, instead of going to medical or law school. Later during the dot com bubble, many of the best and brightest were siphoned off from Wall Street to go into technology. It is obvious that bright young adults are going to follow the money. Well if that is the case, there is no alternative but to grow up and become a hedge fund manager according to this article in the NY Times today.

Several of the most successful managers made over 3 billion dollars each last year alone! That is not that their companies cleared 3 billion, they themselves made 3 billion. In fact to make it to the list of the top 25 hedge fund managers in terms of compensation you had to earn at least 360 million dollars last year alone. Think about that in terms of the median American family income was $60,500.00 dollars last year. So ask yourself, what are you doing securing networks or whatever you do. Stop wasting your time and go get into the hedge fund business.

Seriously, think about it. Hedge funds don't manufacture or make anything, they don't sell a product per se. They manipulate money and make bets on what will go up or down. Sort of the ultimate riverboat gamblers. They aren't teaching our kids to be better people, they aren't making the world safe or making the environment better. But the rewards for what they are doing are almost beyond belief. What message does this send as a society? When I see companies that won't spend a couple of dollars to make sure that your confidential information remains confidential and than see these kind of numbers, what does this society value?

But who am I to rain on the parade of these Titans of Wall Street. I am going to go home and start working on my sons to think about thier future. Like they told Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate", just one word - Plastic HedgeFund!