<p>From my perspective as a non-economist mom hosting young people on vacations, the gold rushers and wall streeters aren’t separate groups. They are the same network, tribe, whatever. ymmv </p>
<p>busdriver: it’s a metaphor. I understand zombies aren’t real. Ellison owns a real island.</p>
<p>adding: sorry, busdriver, I’m not sure what you asked and if my answer was even pertinent. : (</p>
<p>There are a ton of techies on Wall Street. NYC is the new Sulicon Valley.</p>
<p>Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood’s vision of the end result of geek cultural domination. </p>
<p>Okay - I’m through interrupting, at least for today. 
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<p>Exactly. You don’t take sides if 49ers are playing Sixers. It’s the same talent pool.</p>
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<p>Techies going to Wall Street is nothing new. It started when Wall Street began to implement technical analysis and jobs in tech area were scares in the 80s. Now there is a viable option for techies not to go to Wall Street. If you search, you may find editorials lamenting the migration in the 80s.</p>
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<p>Metaphor or not, and maybe this belongs on the retirement thread, but it represents one of the few remaining threats to the financially comfortable. We have saved, live below our means, have everything financially in pretty good shape. What happens if some mass hysteria leads to rampant lawlessness? Imagine, for example, if the U.S. had hundreds of thousands of Ebola victims and extrapolate from the hysteria caused by a handful of cases. I have never owned a gun and have no plans to own one now, but under those circumstances I might wish I could trade a mutual fund for a shotgun. </p>
<p>I’m trying to get EU citizenship, as it is necessary if you want to retire there. I’m not sure where we will wind up, but it’s not a bad idea to have options. </p>
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<p>Absolutely. I was a techie who worked at NASA developing software for testing rocket engines (to subsequent merriment on Wall Street for being a literal Rocket Scientist 
). The money was a factor, but of more importance to me was that Wall Street had better technology, and I was a techie, so the draw was strong. Whether that’s a sad thing for the country (ie that Wall Street had better tech than NASA (or for that matter, DOE and EPA, where I also worked) )is a subject for another thread. </p>
<p>"busdriver: it’s a metaphor. I understand zombies aren’t real. Ellison owns a real island.</p>
<p>adding: sorry, busdriver, I’m not sure what you asked and if my answer was even pertinent. : ("</p>
<p>Hey, since when do answers ever have to be pertinent on cc? I know you don’t believe in zombies 
I had just heard the term a few times, and wondering if it had any particular significance. I’m often the last one to know<br>
what is part of pop culture.</p>
<p>" The money was a factor, but of more importance to me was that Wall Street had better technology, and I was a techie, so the draw was strong"</p>
<p>I think for most true techies, it’s the interest in the tech that drives them, not the money. The money is an added bonus.</p>
<p>@busdriver11, When I was in my heyday, I never bought lottery tickets because, on the off chance that I won, I wouldn’t want to have to explain why I continued to show up at work 
Over the years, that changed :)</p>
<p>"It personally seems stupid to me for someone who makes 100K to buy a 50K car, but apparently there’s this high geographic divide. "</p>
<p>I was discussing this idea (of how to spend / save) with a friend of mine this morning at the gym. He is my age, divorced and dating a 50 yo female doctor who is divorced with 2 kids. He was telling me that before he met her, she and her ex-husband (also a doctor) had $100,000 in the bank and went and spent $80,000 on a Porsche Cayenne. Seriously. Two doctors and they couldn’t get beyond $20,000 between the two of them because of their spending ways. </p>
<p>That is very fortunate to have had a job that you enjoyed that much. It’s pretty rare.</p>
<p>I know zombies aren’t really real but are some people disappearing from our group? :eek:</p>
<p>oh no - am I next?</p>
<p>Heh heh. Maybe. I hope not.</p>
<p><em>brains! brains! b r a I n s!!</em></p>
<p>I need some of those, but they need to be intact and transplantable. Not tasty.</p>
<p>Post 982–“Oryx and Crake”–great book. One my D read and I tagged along afterwards in audio version.</p>
<p>I like this…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.salon.com/2014/12/21/why_so_many_rich_americans_think_theyre_middle_class_partner/”>http://www.salon.com/2014/12/21/why_so_many_rich_americans_think_theyre_middle_class_partner/</a></p>
<p>I really like this…</p>
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[quote]
Such misperceptions were recently spotlighted by comedian Chris Rock in an interview with New York magazine. Of inequality, he said: “People don’t even know [about it]. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.”[/ quote]</p>
<p>That was a really good interview–I like what he said about a lot of things, including that.</p>