Most days I get up extra early and work a little O/T. Even with time and a half it’s a fourth of what I used to make. I barely squeak by each month without dipping into retirement savings or taking a quickie loan, and that’s with zero debt living incredibly frugally. I’m not exaggerating folks, after a lifetime as a successful executive managing millions of dollars, on an inflation adjusted basis I now make at age fifty what I made at age fifteen working as a dishwasher in a barbecue joint. And every morning a neighbor, we’ll call him Ben, is out on his porch sipping coffee taking it easy: Ben is on some kind of disability, he hurt his back a few years ago, doesn’t work at all and he brings home almost exactly what I do every month. [Read more…]