Of course not, but it’s fun to think that in some small little way I was for a 5 minute period.

I make a good living, for a journalist. But it’s not *that* good. I live in a 400 square foot apartment on the ground floor with no light and not even enough room for a microwave. I give over $600 a month to the nice people who lent me the money to go to business school. I can’t afford to fully fund my 401(k), and my budget for things like entertainment, travel, expensive electronics and so forth pretty much doesn’t exist. If I want to save money, or have a treat, I have to do freelance work, such as book reviews.

...

Do you know what my marginal tax rate was on my freelance work? More than fifty percent.

So, how does that make me so smart? I had a chance to pursue freelance writing once, and do have a couple of good (and not so good) articles out there. When I sat down and did the math for the amount of work I put into my work, and what I got out of it, I decided there are better things to do with my life. It took me only about 3 seconds to put the keyboard away.