[swalkergibson]

I would posit that nothing can be done about this in engineering.

PE, big banks, all of that money is based on information gathered from the companies before the rest of us peons get wind of any of it. John Q. Public is playing what he thinks is a fair lottery, while the wizards are pulling the levers behind the curtains. If we as engineers could figure out a legal way to "earn commissions" (read: steal from tens of thousands of people every year based on information asymmetry), then $500k is no problem. Until then, however, we are confined to, you know, actually trying to create value for people rather than extract it from the system.

Pardon the cynicism, I am pretty unnerved by our whole economic incentive structure.