There is some truth to what you say...some. I recall during C2K negotiations overhearing some pilots in the lounge making statements like "I'm worth $xxx" "I demand $xxx or I will vote no" etc. I was a fly on the wall, but I thought to myself "says who?"

At the time I had two businesses that I had started from scratch. As a business owner, especially during startup, sometimes you make less than your employees and work harder and longer than they do. The goal of having employees is that sometimes you get the part of the profit they generate.

Long story short, if you are skilled and enjoy something, you can make $50K your first year just by hanging your shingle. It takes effort or a special market to break $100K quickly. It takes size and employees (scale) to go higher than that - $100K is a (rough) ceiling in most parts of the country. That is from personal experience and based upon my businesses (car lot and construction co.)

I have friends that just know how to make money...they can be counted on one hand. The rest of us just have to slug it out to grow our businesses.

This only has moderate application to our piloting skill set. The world market says we are worth more than our domestic market...a lot more. Even at world market levels, there are those among us who have proven what they are worth by actually making tons of money and running successful and growing businesses.

If you think only like a w-2 recipient, you may be mostly right - there are a limited number of jobs you can just walk into making $120K plus. If you think differently and are willing to do what it takes, $120k/year would be looked at like a sky is falling, bad year.