Yep, asking your children for money after you blow up is pretty embarrassing considering you have a great reputation or had one. He really hyped himself up in Education of a Speculator.
I think anyone with a good strategy/risk mgmt would do fine with it. The guys who whine that it's unachievable are your typical cowboy/gambler traders who would blow out with any kind of risk limits. 1000 bucks trading with Crude Futures, 5 lot max. Longer term guys who are going for the 1 to 3 dollar move should probably be risking 1 buck in Crude. 1000 bucks. Trade a 0ne lot Medium term guys going for the 70-150 move in crude give it 50 cents downside, 2 contracts. The scalpers who probably are only going to give it 5-10 ticks risk could trade 4-5 lots. All depends on your strategy/time frame/Profit goals.
A salary isn't for wimps at all. But the big prop firms that back guys rarely pay a salary (FNYS did for a while, a draw vs future profits). But to make it at a real/big prop firm you must produce, so while a salary would be nice, I can see their view on not paying guys a salary. Too many guys fail, would be throwing away money.
You nailed it traderchi. Here is our little gmst friend: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=239446
The fact that he goes around being overly critical of all others who succeed after blowing out twice is a joke (Just like Surf...at least Surf blows up on a chat board with fantasy money). VN's a brilliant guy who can't trade. He has a nice run for a short time , then his lack of risk mgmt caught up to him and he was removed from the biz. It's like all the guys who came into trading in 1998 or so. Did great for a few years, then when it got tough they all got clobbered and are out of the biz. VN sold puts during bull markets, then when there was a serious correction he got destroyed with his over leveraging. He has a giant ego and it caught up to him. Happens to most blow up traders.
A 36% drawdown? Losing 9% in a single day? No wonder he thinks these combines are too restrictive. Good lord.