I completely missed this response until now, so I'd just like to thank you for putting the time in to write this up.

    I'd have $50K in my 401Ks and up to $150K in other investments.

401k is a pension-type fund, right? I'm from the UK, so not entirely sure of the terminology. What would you put the other 150k into though?

    or you could use your talent to rise within the few companies which 
    are actually printing money, and then let your dollars work for you

Those are very wise words.