I think the problem is in America the frugal clerk makes 3000/month, a white collar professional makes 8000/month and a high level executive makes 14000/month after taxes. And I wonder if I'm being too stingy with our executive here...
Where is "here?" The average engineer salary (even if you say software dev only) in the US is absolutely not $170k/yr, it's closer to half that.[0] And $400k/yr is dentist-level money. I'm not saying nobody makes that, lots of devs (in absolute terms) do, but it's about as helpful as saying "businesspeople make $40M-$40B a year" when the vast majority of them make $65k/yr as a middle manager.
You made a pretty massive leap from white collar professional to high level executive. What about mid-level executives, specialized independent contractors, tradesmen, and the rest? You also discount the risk premium of the high level executive position, where often your income is zero or negative some of the years you are an executive.
