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Disagree, this constant propagation of rigged system or unfair game is not accurate. I know lots of people who came from very little and were able to work thems

Disagree, this constant propagation of rigged system or unfair game is not accurate. I know lots of people who came from very little and were able to work themselves up to economic success. In fact many of the people on the Fobes list came from poor upbringing and backgrounds.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
And vastly more of them are not on the Forbes list. People have done studies on income mobility and inter-generational income mobility. The studies say that it's getting worse, not better. Yes, people can move up/down, but most don't, and it's happening less over time.
- nodesocket 8y ago
  Going from the top, Jeff Bezos himself and Warren Buffet both grew up in middle class environments. Bezos worked at McDonalds as a short order cook while Buffett while young was notoriously hard working and frugal. Buffett would take his paper route earnings (mere dollars) and invest in stocks. Anyway, I don't have the resources and time to go through the entire Forbes list, but I suspect there are a lot more people than most would believe and perhaps like to acknowledge from middle class or "lower" class environments.
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    Do I really need to explain anecdotes vs data? Income is a strongly inherited trait. Look at this absurdly linear plot in section 2: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01... The only deviations from pure correlation are that the extremely poor and rich are EVEN MORE likely to be extremely poor or rich.
- eanzenberg 8y ago
  The US (I assume you're talking about the US) intragenerational mobility is actually quite strong, meaning people have the ability to impact their own economic outcomes if they choose, or in other words, the American dream (TM). Decreased intergenerational mobility in the US is actually a function of decreased fraction of families earning below 100k, meaning, less people by fraction in the lower and middle class as they've pushed up into the upper >100k tier.
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    Probably better to measure by where people are on the income distribution than above/below arbitrary points like 100k. Most of the research I've seen uses quintiles as a proxy for "class". If you look downthread, I've linked some that disagrees with you re: USA vs other anglosphere countries.

yourbandsucks 8y ago

And vastly more of them are not on the Forbes list. People have done studies on income mobility and inter-generational income mobility. The studies say that it's getting worse, not better. Yes, people can move up/down, but most don't, and it's happening less over time.

nodesocket 8y ago
Going from the top, Jeff Bezos himself and Warren Buffet both grew up in middle class environments. Bezos worked at McDonalds as a short order cook while Buffett while young was notoriously hard working and frugal. Buffett would take his paper route earnings (mere dollars) and invest in stocks. Anyway, I don't have the resources and time to go through the entire Forbes list, but I suspect there are a lot more people than most would believe and perhaps like to acknowledge from middle class or "lower" class environments.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Do I really need to explain anecdotes vs data? Income is a strongly inherited trait. Look at this absurdly linear plot in section 2: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01... The only deviations from pure correlation are that the extremely poor and rich are EVEN MORE likely to be extremely poor or rich.
eanzenberg 8y ago
The US (I assume you're talking about the US) intragenerational mobility is actually quite strong, meaning people have the ability to impact their own economic outcomes if they choose, or in other words, the American dream (TM). Decreased intergenerational mobility in the US is actually a function of decreased fraction of families earning below 100k, meaning, less people by fraction in the lower and middle class as they've pushed up into the upper >100k tier.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Probably better to measure by where people are on the income distribution than above/below arbitrary points like 100k. Most of the research I've seen uses quintiles as a proxy for "class". If you look downthread, I've linked some that disagrees with you re: USA vs other anglosphere countries.