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Bullshit. Yet another fluff piece attempting to keep the American Dream alive. Even the briefest encounter with demographic statistics shows that poor stay poor

Bullshit. Yet another fluff piece attempting to keep the American Dream alive. Even the briefest encounter with demographic statistics shows that poor stay poor, rich stay rich. In fact, in just today's Globe and Mail (Canada): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-rich-really-are-getting-richer/article1819803/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-rich-really...

deleted 16y ago
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detst 16y ago
> poor stay poor, rich stay rich Sure, but I've always thought about the American Dream as opportunity. Whether an individual takes an opportunity before them is a personal choice but it's still there for the taking. That can't be said everywhere in the world. Nothing about the "American Dream" guarantees success and no one says it's easy.
mlinsey 16y ago
Can you explain how the statistics cited in your link support your argument? All I see are comparisons of income distributions at various points in time - without any discussion of whether people are moving between different parts of the distribution.
sandipc 16y ago
the title of the article is "Twenty Billionaires Who Started with Nothing" given that this is just a collection of photos and facts, how is this piece bullshit?
- Retric 16y ago
  Started with: While most of the world's richest people earned their money, some had farther to climb. Neither Bill Gates nor Warren Buffett inherited wealth, <- that's wrong, buffet had a significant trust fund from dead relatives. Even most of the world's richest people earned their money is somewhat debatable, years of compound interest + a solid nest egg helped many billionaires along. And plenty of them benefited from more from less than ethical behavior and or luck than hard work. PS: If you want to look for patterns look a little closer to the bell curve. Start talking about 1 person out of 6 million and patterns are next to meaningless.
  - David 16y ago
    You'll note that neither Bill Gates nor Warren Buffet is among the 20. That particular statement may be wrong -- but it's actually unrelated to the thrust of the article. In fact with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet the author was giving examples of people who did not start with nothing. (The rest of the sentence you half-quoted: "but they were raised in affluent homes so they didn't have to worry about keeping their families fed.")
- _delirium 16y ago
  The title and list are fine, but the full article starts with the following phrase, which clearly has a political agenda: Anyone who doubts that America is the land of opportunity just needs to...

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

detst 16y ago

> poor stay poor, rich stay rich Sure, but I've always thought about the American Dream as opportunity. Whether an individual takes an opportunity before them is a personal choice but it's still there for the taking. That can't be said everywhere in the world. Nothing about the "American Dream" guarantees success and no one says it's easy.

mlinsey 16y ago

Can you explain how the statistics cited in your link support your argument? All I see are comparisons of income distributions at various points in time - without any discussion of whether people are moving between different parts of the distribution.

sandipc 16y ago

the title of the article is "Twenty Billionaires Who Started with Nothing" given that this is just a collection of photos and facts, how is this piece bullshit?

Retric 16y ago
Started with: While most of the world's richest people earned their money, some had farther to climb. Neither Bill Gates nor Warren Buffett inherited wealth, <- that's wrong, buffet had a significant trust fund from dead relatives. Even most of the world's richest people earned their money is somewhat debatable, years of compound interest + a solid nest egg helped many billionaires along. And plenty of them benefited from more from less than ethical behavior and or luck than hard work. PS: If you want to look for patterns look a little closer to the bell curve. Start talking about 1 person out of 6 million and patterns are next to meaningless.
- David 16y ago
  You'll note that neither Bill Gates nor Warren Buffet is among the 20. That particular statement may be wrong -- but it's actually unrelated to the thrust of the article. In fact with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet the author was giving examples of people who did not start with nothing. (The rest of the sentence you half-quoted: "but they were raised in affluent homes so they didn't have to worry about keeping their families fed.")
_delirium 16y ago
The title and list are fine, but the full article starts with the following phrase, which clearly has a political agenda: Anyone who doubts that America is the land of opportunity just needs to...