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Just start a small business, or build wealth through real estate is a take that indicates some severe divorce from the reality of poverty in America. You need

by taurath 3mo ago

Just start a small business, or build wealth through real estate is a take that indicates some severe divorce from the reality of poverty in America. You need both capital (which folks don’t have access to) and the ability to absorb risk (which folks don’t have access to). Similar advice is in the vein of just stay with your parents for free, have a relative invest $50,000 in your business to start it up. This runs counter to your internal narrative as a self made person I’m sure, but have you ever worked for 40 hours a week and not had anything left after paying for your share of rent, food and utilities? This is the reality that doesn’t seep into forums like this, where the majority is wealthy, college educated, and broadly privileged in some way either through exceptional talent or background. > let's not have any low-effort comments claiming that there are no good jobs available in those places I will bite - homeownership is indeed higher in the rust belt, but many folks struggle to find jobs that meet the median without giving up their health and bodies, if they can find steady work at all.

giantrobot 3mo ago
I don't know what you mean, I mean I made a million dollars with only a small hundred million dollar loan from my dad! This sort of entrepreneurship is available to anyone in America.¹ ¹ Terms and conditions apply.
- scottyah 3mo ago
  The propagation of this type of mindset is more damaging than the gambling.
  - romanhounds 3mo ago
    how so? because people don't like when you move into their area and buy your way into everything? Displacing the people around? The "artisanal farmer" with 100M cap investment into gear. People who don't shun and humiliate these silverspooners are more damaging than the gambling.
jcranmer 3mo ago
Upward mobility still occurs in the US, at all levels. While the advice is difficult, almost impossible, for most to apply, it is sometimes applicable. One of the main issues is that a lot of advice is presented as an unconditional, absolute guarantee to success. A college degree was never a guarantee of future success (contrary to great-grandparent's assertion), but the push to get everyone to get a college degree has rendered its utility as a helpful marker much more useless. Similarly, the ability to start your own business is difficult for most people, but even for poorer individuals, it is possible to start, say, a cleaning service with very little assets. (At the same time, such businesses are unlikely to make a whole lot of money at the end, but you might be able to move from working class to middle class, e.g.). A lot of contractor businesses--your plumbers and the like--are going to be from the lower middle class or middle class, and you can make some good money there, although that is also likely to be at the cost of your health much sooner than you expect.
- taurath 3mo ago
  > Upward mobility still occurs in the US, at all levels. This is not a super relevant statement as it can be made with a single example - the rate of mobility is down relative to when those who'd give the advice experienced (which has been compounding for at least the last 30 years, some say since the 1970s). According to one economist in 2020, in the U.S., absolute mobility, the chance a child earns more than their parents, has fallen from about 90% to roughly 50%. Source: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/05/16/two-leading-economists-disagree-about-the-flagging-american-dream https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/05/16/two-leadi... > the push to get everyone to get a college degree has rendered its utility as a helpful marker much more useless Social segregation also plays a really important role too, and cross class relationships have plummeted - as someone who is doing well but didn't go to college, the relationship building in college is a factor that will work against me my entire life. I would never say that upward mobility is impossible, or that its not worth it to strive for it. I am saying that dismissing headwinds due to no guarantee of success doesn't really take into account severely constrained actual access to opportunity that continues to become more constrained over time.
- 6510 3mo ago
  > Similarly, the ability to start your own business is difficult for most people Ah right, after a 14 hour shift you've left your car half way as that was how far she could take you. You are now on your knees with the god of all migraines, around you are small mountains of laundry as you fail to repair the washing machine while your ramen gets cold. Your mind locked in a loop, if I pay this bill how will I buy food, I need to pay this bill, I need to buy food. Then POOF suddenly it strikes you that you could start your own business. Adrenaline rushes though your veins. The whole business lasts about 20 seconds before you wake up in the laundry, shit what time is it, fk I have to walk to work.
nradov 3mo ago
If you try hard enough you can always find a plausible sounding excuse why failure is inevitable. And yet on Saturday at the neighborhood Independence Day party I met a guy who immigrated from Ukraine about 25 years ago with no money, no college education, no family support, and no English language skills. Instead of complaining he just went to work and while not exactly wealthy he's now doing fairly well as an electrical contractor. Life is usually a struggle. No one should expect any different.
- taurath 3mo ago
  > you can always find a plausible sounding excuse why failure is inevitable I think this starts to make an inferred narrative about how failure is inevitable and that its excessive complaining, when there is large amounts of data showing how it is genuinely more difficult. Just your Ukrainian example, it was cheaper to live 25 years ago, the cost of college has gone up ~180%. Since 2001 incomes have gone up 64% while housing has gone up 136%, healthcare up 180%, food up 100% and transportation up 120%. Thats a different playing field. The point being made isn't that failure has any inevitability. Most people will be able to make it work enough to live, and those who can't due to choices, trauma, disability, drug use, or excessive bad luck are the homeless people you see begging on freeway offramps and intersections. At the economy level its a numbers game. It will never be impossible to make it big, in the same way that some people with every single advantage will end up on the street without a penny.
  - mothballed 3mo ago
    Rule of thumb for survival vs sober reality. nradov provides the mindset needed to survive, you provide the wisdom of risks and challenges to be aware of. Today a dreaming Ukrainian is quite likely to instead get ripped away by conscription kidnapping teams and used as cannon fodder on the front, and not even make it to America. The reality changes but the rule of thumb is still good, you do the best with what you have and make yourself ready for opportunity you might not ever get.
    - taurath 3mo ago

by taurath 3mo ago

giantrobot 3mo ago

I don't know what you mean, I mean I made a million dollars with only a small hundred million dollar loan from my dad! This sort of entrepreneurship is available to anyone in America.¹ ¹ Terms and conditions apply.

scottyah 3mo ago
The propagation of this type of mindset is more damaging than the gambling.
- romanhounds 3mo ago
  how so? because people don't like when you move into their area and buy your way into everything? Displacing the people around? The "artisanal farmer" with 100M cap investment into gear. People who don't shun and humiliate these silverspooners are more damaging than the gambling.

jcranmer 3mo ago

Upward mobility still occurs in the US, at all levels. While the advice is difficult, almost impossible, for most to apply, it is sometimes applicable. One of the main issues is that a lot of advice is presented as an unconditional, absolute guarantee to success. A college degree was never a guarantee of future success (contrary to great-grandparent's assertion), but the push to get everyone to get a college degree has rendered its utility as a helpful marker much more useless. Similarly, the ability to start your own business is difficult for most people, but even for poorer individuals, it is possible to start, say, a cleaning service with very little assets. (At the same time, such businesses are unlikely to make a whole lot of money at the end, but you might be able to move from working class to middle class, e.g.). A lot of contractor businesses--your plumbers and the like--are going to be from the lower middle class or middle class, and you can make some good money there, although that is also likely to be at the cost of your health much sooner than you expect.

taurath 3mo ago
> Upward mobility still occurs in the US, at all levels. This is not a super relevant statement as it can be made with a single example - the rate of mobility is down relative to when those who'd give the advice experienced (which has been compounding for at least the last 30 years, some say since the 1970s). According to one economist in 2020, in the U.S., absolute mobility, the chance a child earns more than their parents, has fallen from about 90% to roughly 50%. Source: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/05/16/two-leading-economists-disagree-about-the-flagging-american-dream https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/05/16/two-leadi... > the push to get everyone to get a college degree has rendered its utility as a helpful marker much more useless Social segregation also plays a really important role too, and cross class relationships have plummeted - as someone who is doing well but didn't go to college, the relationship building in college is a factor that will work against me my entire life. I would never say that upward mobility is impossible, or that its not worth it to strive for it. I am saying that dismissing headwinds due to no guarantee of success doesn't really take into account severely constrained actual access to opportunity that continues to become more constrained over time.
6510 3mo ago
> Similarly, the ability to start your own business is difficult for most people Ah right, after a 14 hour shift you've left your car half way as that was how far she could take you. You are now on your knees with the god of all migraines, around you are small mountains of laundry as you fail to repair the washing machine while your ramen gets cold. Your mind locked in a loop, if I pay this bill how will I buy food, I need to pay this bill, I need to buy food. Then POOF suddenly it strikes you that you could start your own business. Adrenaline rushes though your veins. The whole business lasts about 20 seconds before you wake up in the laundry, shit what time is it, fk I have to walk to work.

nradov 3mo ago

If you try hard enough you can always find a plausible sounding excuse why failure is inevitable. And yet on Saturday at the neighborhood Independence Day party I met a guy who immigrated from Ukraine about 25 years ago with no money, no college education, no family support, and no English language skills. Instead of complaining he just went to work and while not exactly wealthy he's now doing fairly well as an electrical contractor. Life is usually a struggle. No one should expect any different.

taurath 3mo ago
> you can always find a plausible sounding excuse why failure is inevitable I think this starts to make an inferred narrative about how failure is inevitable and that its excessive complaining, when there is large amounts of data showing how it is genuinely more difficult. Just your Ukrainian example, it was cheaper to live 25 years ago, the cost of college has gone up ~180%. Since 2001 incomes have gone up 64% while housing has gone up 136%, healthcare up 180%, food up 100% and transportation up 120%. Thats a different playing field. The point being made isn't that failure has any inevitability. Most people will be able to make it work enough to live, and those who can't due to choices, trauma, disability, drug use, or excessive bad luck are the homeless people you see begging on freeway offramps and intersections. At the economy level its a numbers game. It will never be impossible to make it big, in the same way that some people with every single advantage will end up on the street without a penny.
- mothballed 3mo ago
  Rule of thumb for survival vs sober reality. nradov provides the mindset needed to survive, you provide the wisdom of risks and challenges to be aware of. Today a dreaming Ukrainian is quite likely to instead get ripped away by conscription kidnapping teams and used as cannon fodder on the front, and not even make it to America. The reality changes but the rule of thumb is still good, you do the best with what you have and make yourself ready for opportunity you might not ever get.
  - taurath 3mo ago