The real world is catching up fast with finance's make-believe Masters of the Universe - bankers, analysts, funds managers and all the titles in between are suddenly rather easy to find and much cheaper than they were six months ago.

Casual research jobs previously done by uni students are now being filled by experienced analysts at uni student rates. Well, it's better than competing with South Sea islanders to pick fruit in the Riverina.

And at the top of the money mirage, it's become even more obvious chief executives haven't been worth the ridiculous amounts they've extorted from gormless boards. The question remains though whether the boards are too dopey to realise that.

Coming out of the last recession, there was a line I used to use in presentations that what really happened in 1990-91 was Australian business very forcibly joined the real world with the exception of three industries: commercial television, IT and banking/funds management.

By the mid-late 90s, the list was down to two and unfortunately television wasn't one of them. The bursting of the dot.com bubble brought IT back to reality and then there was one.