Have gun, will travel

$$: Entry level grunts may begin in the high five and low six figures. If you're a graduate of one of the huge consultant factories that leach humanity out of students and turn them into guns for hire--Wharton, and to a lesser extent, the somewhat squishier Stanford School of Business--you could be making an executive's salary almost immediately.

The upside: It's a pretty easy job, with great travel benefits, nice hotels, drinks on the companies you are soaking.

The downside: Your kids can never explain what you do to their friends.

The dark side: You are a ninja, a samurai, a lone traveler on the road to nowhere. It's a very opulent nowhere if you're good at it. But somewhere in your heart, you want to come in from the cold.