CanuckInUSA 0 #1 September 10, 2011 A friend recommended the movie "The Company Men" so I logged into my iTunes account and downloaded a copy to rent. The movie came out last year, so some of you may have already seen it. Overall I thought it was a good movie. It was not political in terms of pitting Elephants against Donkeys and it simply addressed the reality that heavy industry in America is dying and many people are losing their jobs, many people are having a hard time finding replacement jobs while the executives at the head of the food chain are still making obscene money (let us also not forget the people in Hollywood continue to make obscene money and of course certain professional athletes also make obscene money). It is a good movie, but with all that said, I wonder how many people also acknowledged that the lead actor "Ben Afflect" (as well as at least one other person in this movie) was living well beyond their means. The Ben Afflect character has been working at this GTX company for 12 years and while we do not know the salary history the Afflect character made in his entire 12 year career, during the movie we know Ben was making 120k as a base salary and collected another 40k in bonuses. Sure this is still miles behind the 22 million the CEO took home, but the Afflect character lost his family home and most of their other possessions within only a month or two of losing his employment. So while yes we can slam the CEOs for the obscene money they make (how many real world millions did Ben Afflect take home from this movie), let us not forget ... - Live within your means - Do not spend more than you make - Save for a rainy day I am unemployed right now, my job ended in May. Unfortunately I am no where close to having enough money to retire on so I will need to find another job. But I was NOT living paycheck to paycheck. Without even selling certain assets and/or dipping into my retirement savings, I have enough money saved to weather about 12 months of unemployment (hopefully I will find meaningful employment in my preferred career before my savings are exhausted). Think people ... just because government believes it is okay to spend money that they do not have does not mean we as individuals can think the same way. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
