In the article, they're comparing the job security, high pay, etc. of a mathematician with the « it's not much, but I like it» of the lumberjack. Working as an actuary, I am impressed by how many of my coworkers got there because « hey! It pays » and are in fact (not so) secretly dreaming of changing jobs.
depends on the job. a software engineer could be stuck writing business forms.
conversely, you could be Nate Silver, the world's most famous and exciting actuary. in this case meaning "well paid guy who does stats and math".
When I went to university (late 90's), the web was still one big geo-cities, there was no such thing as smartphones. I lived in Australia, and unless you were extremely talented you would probably end up working a fairly low paid job doing fairly boring work. The world seems to be a far more exciting and potentially lucrative place for software engineers now.
"What is the difference between an introverted actuary and an extroverted actuary? An introverted actuary stares at his own feet during a conversation, while an extroverted one stares at the other person's feet."