6 ms·

Whereas rich are rich because their parents were rich.

by gue5t 9y ago

anovikov 9y ago
That is simply not true, at least not in any even minimally developed country.
- John23832 9y ago
  The same can be said about your original comment.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  You're both talking in extremes. There is a lot of inherited wealth in the developed world [1]. There is also a relationship between "marshmallow test" impulsiveness and peoples' tendency to squander the opportunities their life presents them [2]. The relative balance between these factors is debatable. Their presence is more difficult to dismiss. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-stay-rich-in-europe-inherit-money-for-700-years https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-st... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification
  - awinder 9y ago
    35-45% of wealth as a raw figure is inherited, if you consider wealth ownership by the top 1%, that is a hell of an advantaged start. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/01/30/wealth-inheritance-and-social-mobility/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/01...
    - anovikov 9y ago
      But it also means that, outside of top 1%, wealth (as in: assets, vs income) is totally unimportant.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    This study claims 67%[0] of millionaires in the US are self made, with only 8% having inherited all or most of that wealth. [0]http://www.fa-mag.com/news/most-millionaires-self-made--study-says-14565.html http://www.fa-mag.com/news/most-millionaires-self-made--stud...
    - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
      What happens if you click that up to $10mil? $1mil isn't what it used to be with housing rising as it has over the past couple decades. (It doesn't actually reference the study, so I can't look at their data.) I expect that "millionaire" now reflects the top tiers of middle class people without an accompanying increase in purchasing power -- they just inflated across a boundary and now suddenly there's a bunch of "millionaires", without that term meaning what it used to 40-50 years ago.
      - anovikov 9y ago
        In any income bracket short of outright billionaires (at least up to top 0.01% of population), majority of income is salaries. Not return on capital in any form. So, it can't possibly be inherited (of course your daddy paying for good college and providing you with good upbringing and mindset still counts, but you don't need to be very rich for that).
        SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
        We're discussing asset brackets, so your point is less relevant. My point was that a middle class family (say, 120-150k/yr) is going to have around a million dollars in assets by retirement age. But that's not what most people think of when they hear "millionaire", because our cultural expectations are a generation or two old -- they don't reflect the effects of the last couple decades on housing value or inflation. So instead of looking at families with assets of $1mil, it probably makes more sense to look at families with assets of $10mil if you want to discuss the mobility into "wealthy" instead of "upper middle class".
      - chillingeffect 9y ago
  - AlexandrB 9y ago
    Read your own damn references [1] before postulating how the poor are poor because they have no self-control and not the other way around: > A 2012 study at the University of Rochester (with a smaller N= 28) altered the experiment by dividing children into two groups: one group was given a broken promise before the marshmallow test was conducted (the unreliable tester group), and the second group had a fulfilled promise before their marshmallow test (the reliable tester group). The reliable tester group waited up to four times longer (12 min) than the unreliable tester group for the second marshmallow to appear. The authors argue that this calls into question the original interpretation of self-control as the critical factor in children's performance, since self-control should predict ability to wait, not strategic waiting when it makes sense. Prior to the Marshmallow Studies at Stanford, Walter Mischel had shown that the child's belief that the promised delayed rewards would actually be delivered is an important determinant of the choice to delay, but his later experiments did not take this factor into account or control for individual variation in beliefs about reliability when reporting correlations with life successes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      There are five follow-up studies in the Wikipedia section you cite [1]: A 1998 study "showed that 'preschool children who delayed gratification longer in the self-imposed delay paradigm, were described more than 10 years later by their parents as adolescents who were significantly more competent.'" A 1990 study "showed that the ability to delay gratification also correlated with higher SAT scores." A 2006 study used a cookie instead of a marshmallow. "A 2011 brain imaging study of a sample from the original Stanford participants when they reached mid-life showed key differences between those with high delay times and those with low delay times in two areas: the prefrontal cortex (more active in high delayers) and the ventral striatum (an area linked to addictions) when they were trying to control their responses to alluring temptations." You only quote the 2012 study (N=28). It's a small study, though it raises an interesting point around the direction of the relationship. It doesn't undermine that there are individual and group factors at play with inequality. Any explanation grandly defaulting to one is dishonest. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment#Follow-up_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
  - fjdlwlv 9y ago
    The marshmallow test showed that people who have a well-founded lack of trust in their environment show shorter term thinking. Aka making the best of their bad situation.
donatj 9y ago
There have been studies and the vast majority of millionaires in the United States are still self made, whereas Europe is largely old money.
- sigi45 9y ago
  And there is another study saying this is bullshit and rich people tend to be rich and keep it in there familie in US as well.
  - chillingeffect 9y ago
    I think you and parent are right... It's just easiest to become self-made after going to business school funded by parents, receiving cars from parents, wedding funding by parents, moving into a house with a down payment in cash split by both parents, receiving daycare from 2-4 grandparents, then career advice from successful parents in the same industry. This describes lots of people around me. Self-made... but not from the ghetto or nothing, from fans all on sides feeding the flames. Not that I think it's wrong or should be changed overnight, but I wish there were some ways to help people without doing everything for them. For example, one person in my family had a screwed up life. A group of us got together to buy this person a basic car. That transportation changed their whole life- it was like a keystone that got them self-sufficient. After begrudgingly paying their rent for many months, the one-time car cost wise much wiser. I wish that could be replicated. E.g. public transport could/should have the same effect, but it's such a convenient income source, it just gets opportunistically priced upwards...
- anovikov 9y ago
  That is true only for UK. Simply because in rest of EU there is no way to be 'old money' due to world wars and/or Communism where old money lost everything.
  - pg314 9y ago
    That is wrong. E.g. one of the richest families in Belgium is the de Spoelberch family. They owned the brewery Artois, which through various acquisitions and mergers turned into ABInBev. Together with the de Mévius and Vandamme families, they were estimated to be worth about 49 billion Euros in 2015 [1]. Another example in that list is the Janssen family (Solvay and UCB) whose fortune goes back a long way. [1] http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2362216# http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2362216#

Whereas rich are rich because their parents were rich.

by gue5t 9y ago

Whereas rich are rich because their parents were rich.

anovikov 9y ago

That is simply not true, at least not in any even minimally developed country.

John23832 9y ago
The same can be said about your original comment.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
You're both talking in extremes. There is a lot of inherited wealth in the developed world [1]. There is also a relationship between "marshmallow test" impulsiveness and peoples' tendency to squander the opportunities their life presents them [2]. The relative balance between these factors is debatable. Their presence is more difficult to dismiss. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-stay-rich-in-europe-inherit-money-for-700-years https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-st... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification
- awinder 9y ago
  35-45% of wealth as a raw figure is inherited, if you consider wealth ownership by the top 1%, that is a hell of an advantaged start. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/01/30/wealth-inheritance-and-social-mobility/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/01...
  - anovikov 9y ago
    But it also means that, outside of top 1%, wealth (as in: assets, vs income) is totally unimportant.
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  This study claims 67%[0] of millionaires in the US are self made, with only 8% having inherited all or most of that wealth. [0]http://www.fa-mag.com/news/most-millionaires-self-made--study-says-14565.html http://www.fa-mag.com/news/most-millionaires-self-made--stud...
  - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    What happens if you click that up to $10mil? $1mil isn't what it used to be with housing rising as it has over the past couple decades. (It doesn't actually reference the study, so I can't look at their data.) I expect that "millionaire" now reflects the top tiers of middle class people without an accompanying increase in purchasing power -- they just inflated across a boundary and now suddenly there's a bunch of "millionaires", without that term meaning what it used to 40-50 years ago.
    - anovikov 9y ago
      In any income bracket short of outright billionaires (at least up to top 0.01% of population), majority of income is salaries. Not return on capital in any form. So, it can't possibly be inherited (of course your daddy paying for good college and providing you with good upbringing and mindset still counts, but you don't need to be very rich for that).
      - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
        We're discussing asset brackets, so your point is less relevant. My point was that a middle class family (say, 120-150k/yr) is going to have around a million dollars in assets by retirement age. But that's not what most people think of when they hear "millionaire", because our cultural expectations are a generation or two old -- they don't reflect the effects of the last couple decades on housing value or inflation. So instead of looking at families with assets of $1mil, it probably makes more sense to look at families with assets of $10mil if you want to discuss the mobility into "wealthy" instead of "upper middle class".
    - chillingeffect 9y ago
- AlexandrB 9y ago
  Read your own damn references [1] before postulating how the poor are poor because they have no self-control and not the other way around: > A 2012 study at the University of Rochester (with a smaller N= 28) altered the experiment by dividing children into two groups: one group was given a broken promise before the marshmallow test was conducted (the unreliable tester group), and the second group had a fulfilled promise before their marshmallow test (the reliable tester group). The reliable tester group waited up to four times longer (12 min) than the unreliable tester group for the second marshmallow to appear. The authors argue that this calls into question the original interpretation of self-control as the critical factor in children's performance, since self-control should predict ability to wait, not strategic waiting when it makes sense. Prior to the Marshmallow Studies at Stanford, Walter Mischel had shown that the child's belief that the promised delayed rewards would actually be delivered is an important determinant of the choice to delay, but his later experiments did not take this factor into account or control for individual variation in beliefs about reliability when reporting correlations with life successes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    There are five follow-up studies in the Wikipedia section you cite [1]: A 1998 study "showed that 'preschool children who delayed gratification longer in the self-imposed delay paradigm, were described more than 10 years later by their parents as adolescents who were significantly more competent.'" A 1990 study "showed that the ability to delay gratification also correlated with higher SAT scores." A 2006 study used a cookie instead of a marshmallow. "A 2011 brain imaging study of a sample from the original Stanford participants when they reached mid-life showed key differences between those with high delay times and those with low delay times in two areas: the prefrontal cortex (more active in high delayers) and the ventral striatum (an area linked to addictions) when they were trying to control their responses to alluring temptations." You only quote the 2012 study (N=28). It's a small study, though it raises an interesting point around the direction of the relationship. It doesn't undermine that there are individual and group factors at play with inequality. Any explanation grandly defaulting to one is dishonest. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment#Follow-up_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
- fjdlwlv 9y ago
  The marshmallow test showed that people who have a well-founded lack of trust in their environment show shorter term thinking. Aka making the best of their bad situation.

donatj 9y ago

There have been studies and the vast majority of millionaires in the United States are still self made, whereas Europe is largely old money.

sigi45 9y ago
And there is another study saying this is bullshit and rich people tend to be rich and keep it in there familie in US as well.
- chillingeffect 9y ago
  I think you and parent are right... It's just easiest to become self-made after going to business school funded by parents, receiving cars from parents, wedding funding by parents, moving into a house with a down payment in cash split by both parents, receiving daycare from 2-4 grandparents, then career advice from successful parents in the same industry. This describes lots of people around me. Self-made... but not from the ghetto or nothing, from fans all on sides feeding the flames. Not that I think it's wrong or should be changed overnight, but I wish there were some ways to help people without doing everything for them. For example, one person in my family had a screwed up life. A group of us got together to buy this person a basic car. That transportation changed their whole life- it was like a keystone that got them self-sufficient. After begrudgingly paying their rent for many months, the one-time car cost wise much wiser. I wish that could be replicated. E.g. public transport could/should have the same effect, but it's such a convenient income source, it just gets opportunistically priced upwards...
anovikov 9y ago
That is true only for UK. Simply because in rest of EU there is no way to be 'old money' due to world wars and/or Communism where old money lost everything.
- pg314 9y ago
  That is wrong. E.g. one of the richest families in Belgium is the de Spoelberch family. They owned the brewery Artois, which through various acquisitions and mergers turned into ABInBev. Together with the de Mévius and Vandamme families, they were estimated to be worth about 49 billion Euros in 2015 [1]. Another example in that list is the Janssen family (Solvay and UCB) whose fortune goes back a long way. [1] http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2362216# http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2362216#