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Honestly, if my kid was just born I don't even know if I could let the doctors put the baby out of my sight. Things like this do happen! Probably more than people think it does.
Yep, it's just like the "Trading Places" movie with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. It was a fun comedy but with very real and true sociological lessons. Anyone who tries to deny the reality and truth in this story is simply ignorant, willfully ignorant or blind.
I see it in my own world through the people I know personally. If you're born working class, lower middle class to poor your battle is uphill. Born rich and you merely have to walk the path laid out in front of you.
The rules of life 1: Life ain't fair 2: It's all about timing and luck 3: There is no justice.
Learn it, live it. No doubt, he got a raw deal. Environment does not guarantee success, but it is a pre-requisite for it.These stories just confirm the obvious.That's one aspect of life I don't mind being normative about. Best he can do is make up for what he forewent as quickly as he can, in his newfound relationship with his rich family. It may not matter at this point but it beats driving that truck for the rest of his life.
Agree, right on!
Why more people can't see this, the obvious, is beyond me. Of course I suspect a lot of them do see it and choose to deny or ignore it because it plays with their self identity as rugged, individualist, John Galt heroes who defied all the odds, worked their tales off, with the help of mommy and daddy's money of course, to achieve success.
A lot of it also has to do with where your born. I've made a point several times on these forms that, if I were a parent, I'd rather be "poor" and have my child grow up in a wealthy, booming area like northern VA than be "rich" and grow up in the desolation of the coal fields of rural VA. Money helps, but environment (which is related to money) plays just as big if not greater part.
Yep. As I always tell my children that your life by the time you hit 40 is pretty much the sum total of the decisions you made. Sure, there are exceptions such as chronic diseases or Acts of God. But if you are a normal person of normal health, you make decisions every day that either contribute or detract from your future happiness and financial status.
My middle child was making a solid B in his rigorous advanced biology class. Blew off an end-of-grading period assignment. Now he has a low C. And yet he was applying to some pretty prestigious schools and is now freaking out, busting his ass to play catch up. He couldn't believe how one bad score totally wrecked his grade in this class, which will likely have an effect on his GPA, which will have an effect on his odds for getting accepted.
And it's that way in our financial lives, too. Let's see. Do you just drink whatever coffee your company provides, or do you get whatever confection you like from Starbucks @ $4.50 a pop? Do that once a day, @ $4.50 a day, and that's $90 a month. That's $1,180 a year. And if you think of it in pre-tax income, you're really spending close to $2,000 a year in coffee. That $2,000 would look a lot nicer in your 401K and, over the course of 35-40 years, would buy all the coffee you want later in life. Same thing goes for eating out versus cooking at home or even just eating leftovers.
Now, mind you, I'm not one of those crazy people who never splurge. It's just that you really have to understand the consequences of each individual decision you make and how those consequences accumulate over time.
So in a big way, one's attention to education and work are the same thing. Do you crouch in the sprinter's blocks at 4:55, waiting for the clock to strike 5:00? Or do you stay an extra 20-30 minutes to make sure you're prepared for the next day? Do you adamantly refuse to attend industry functions, or do you invest a happy hour a month to network and create relationships? Do you have a one-night stand with a woman you don't know, or do you wait to make sure she is a stable partner in life? Many a guy's plans in life have been ruined because they didn't bother to use protection, and literally pay the price in monthly child support installments.
Funny how hard this concept is for people to accept.
LOL!!!! The upper middle class to rich people I know did not and do not have to worry about making "decisions" like the ones you brought up. Chalk up another one who "doesn't get it". If you would explain all this, like buying $4.50 coffees vs, putting it in your 401K(LOL), to the people in my life I'm referencing anonymously on the internet they would look at you like you had a deformity. No, really they would listen to you politely and bemusedly, understanding where you're coming from yet knowing that you're from the underclass and have little in common with them.
Oh, and they already went to private expensive high schools and the colleges they go to are not that critical because as long as they get decent grades in the particular field there are careers waiting. And no, not working as a manager at Mc Donalds or Target.
LMAO!!!! Put your coffee money in your 401K and don't skip assignments will do it for you!!!
Well, what about pulling himself up by his bootstraps?
The guy had rich man DNA. Should have made him a better competitor. After all, wealth is the direct result of hard work and superior ability, not privileged position and connections, right?
I swear to you when I first opened this thread I honestly thought, because it was the economics forum, that one of the Ayn Rand followers found some 1% unique case and it would be exactly what you insinuated above. But no, it was just an article about reality. But what you wrote is so true because I can't tell you how many times on here I've heard that if you give the lower or middle class the riches money, as an experiment, it would just end up with the rich again because they're like supermen with superior genes and all. They probably shoot laser beams out of their eyeballs and fly around in their backyards too.
Repped by the way. Good Post. And good point: Why didn't those genes help him? According to the Ayn Rand types on here he should be swimming in money like Srooge McDuck and the other guy should be driving the truck, not running a Real Estate Business, because of his genes and all... LMAO!!!
Last edited by CK78; 12-06-2013 at 07:34 AM..
Reason: Adding
The rules of life 1: Life ain't fair 2: It's all about timing and luck 3: There is no justice.
Learn it, live it. No doubt, he got a raw deal. Environment does not guarantee success, but it is a pre-requisite for it. These stories just confirm the obvious. That's one aspect of life I don't mind being normative about. Best he can do is make up for what he forewent as quickly as he can, in his newfound relationship with his rich family.
It may not matter at this point but it beats driving that truck for the rest of his life.
I agree with everything you said, except the last part.
My father started as a simple truck driver, developed it into his own business, saved, invested in both his own trucking business and the financial markets, and accumulated large sums.
What's wrong with being a truck driver (... or musician ... or ... fill in the blank), if you have business sense?
Some of the posters here evidently don't understand the difference between an anecdote and a systematic finding. Note that the author had to reach all the way to Japan to find this one. In a world of about 8 billion people, you can find examples of just about anything.
Here's the right-wing version of the same level of thinking: After a cold winter day in your home town, "Well, so much for global warming."
So I propose a thought experiment -- let's round-up all of the hard-working, intelligent people in the United States and deport them. If they are nothing but lucky, hegemonic oppressors, life should be better for everyone left behind. For example, the dumbass who works down at the car wash should soon be able to retrain as a nuclear engineer or a microsurgeon or a symphony conductor. We'll see . . .
I agree with everything you said, except the last part.
My father started as a simple truck driver, developed it into his own business, saved, invested in both his own trucking business and the financial markets, and accumulated large sums.
What's wrong with being a truck driver (... or musician ... or ... fill in the blank), if you have business sense?
Revenue - expenses = income.
That's great about what your father accomplished.
The problem I see though is that many people want to go for glamorous or prestigious jobs or careers...mostly to impress others.
For anyone that has read the book The Millionaire next door. Those millions next door are mostly business people in boring/everyday or even 'dirty' fields such as trash hauling etc.
The news always feeds us the stories of the recent Stanford grad that developed an app and now his company is 'worth' billions.
For everyone of those there are probably 100 or more real millionaires with money in the bank that own ordinary type businesses.
I agree that the KEY is business sense. You could give someone a million cash..but if they don't have the sense to invest it properly , that million won't last long.
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