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First, there is scant explanation of "self made". Is being born into the upper middle class and graduating college with no debt and a Rolodex of reasonably viable connections the same as being born into a lower middle class or poor family and going to a state school on loans? The fact one wasn't explicitly gifted millions of dollars in a trust is not proof that one is "self made".
Second, while they weren't born with the skills, the acquisition of skills (and the precondition to acquisition of advanced skills) mostly happened without choice. Nobody chooses their parents, schools, neighborhood, peers, the work ethic taught or not taught them, the nutrition or exposure to disease they encounter as children (increasingly viewed as a very serious factor in childhood intellectual development), etc... Education discrepancies are primarily a product of class, especially when you talk about the bottom 40% versus the top 60%. If you are anywhere in the bottom 40% as a child, you face much worse odds.
As much as I've posted the obvious problem of the inconvenient truth regarding the lameness of anecdotal recitals provided as evidence of anything, the posts go on and on in that vein. Posters are now speaking about their Fathers or brothers, men of another generation living in a totally different time and a totally different paradigm of employment and business opportunity as proof of todays opportunity and what would be required to take advantage of those opportunities.
If these tales of entrepreneurship were to serve as a complete database that would paint a comprehensive view for us to utilize in an attempt to understand the reasons for such a widespread disparity of well being in America we could dispense with the huge studies done by our best researchers at our most prestigious universities. But thinking people know better and actually take the time to read these voluminous works in order to have a better understanding of the society they live in.
Platitudes speaking to the "grit, guts, and determination" displayed by the rich but nary a word about the same guts, grit, and determination displayed by the poor in their pursuit of a daily sustenance. The realization of what it means to live in a class conscious society and what that implies for those on the low rungs of that class totem is of little interest to most millionaires, and obviously not for those who see our society in terms of black and white imperatives of choice, (i.e.) you either want to get rich, or you don't. And from there we lapse into the right vs left socio/economic discussion of whether wealth is a matter of class and privilege in general or whether it is indeed earned wholly as a result of personal determination.
These types of threads where the average person is expected to provide their take on how millionaires can account for their success become redundant testimonials not to the validity of a system, but moreover as a pulpit to expound on their favorite political views. I don't have a problem with anyone telling me their political views as long as those views aren't hiding behind a "story with a moral" It shows a kind of dishonesty when we couch our current economic situation as just a small speed bump in the road to riches. Our entire economy was laid to waste some years back, this is the key to understanding the current situation, not some testimony from the rich on just how they got that way, and then castigating those who didn't.
As though the ONLY thing standing in the way of millions of dollars in one's pockets is the individuals lack of moxy and determination to get it, conversely, those who hold such simplistic views of economics love to point out the "lefty" nature of any opposition to this view of things. So, we aren't really talking economics here at all, it's pure politics, and the OP's linked story is simply the bait to another political debate...........
So, let's assume from the various posts that guts, grit, and determination are now words that can adequately sum up the necessary qualities required of the "self made" millionaire, and, as would naturally follow, the leftists who fought with their blood in our historical union struggles, the poor with their daunting task of self improvement, the soldier who risked his life but remains poor, and especially those who have tried everything to advance their financial interests to no avail, all have failed to display these qualities when looked at with a certain politically motivated view
This, has become our national mantra of disdain for all of those who didn't "make it". I really don't care to waste a lot of time pondering the reasons why some people are millionaires and others not, but no one should be expected to read these stories without seeing them as a kind of support for a current popular political agenda.
Last edited by jertheber; 07-19-2014 at 01:13 PM..
I know many millionaires. To me that means they have assets minus liabilities in excess of $1M. A personal working in a STEM field earning a typical salary and simply taking advantage of their 401K and not living lavishly could be a "regular" millionaire in 20 years. No extraordinary talent or risk taking required.
Building wealth isn't easy anywhere. But America is probably the easiest country in the world where somebody of humble means could pursue and obtain a good education, become a professional, earn a decent salary as a professional, leave well below his/her means, invest the resulting savings in stock index funds (for example), and over 2-3 decades become a millionaire. Given the taxes, compensation and prices of consumer goods elsewhere, I'm persuaded that America is the optimal place in which to pursue such strategy.
However, you can't earn-and-save your way to billionaire status, or even to $100M – not in one generation. You can't just be a frugal shopper, consummate saver, and wise participant in equity funds. It takes more than one generation of monthly diligence and compound-returns to reach that level. It's at that level that I'd seriously question how many people are genuinely self-made, and how many were simply lucky.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwhitegocubs
Shouldn't the issue be making sure everyone has a decent life with decent rewards for a life well lived and well worked? Why is pulling outliers from the pile and pointing to their outsized wealth and success, often driven by chance and circumstance, important at all? Why is it always modeled on the grounds of millions striving fruitlessly toward some very rare end goal?
The American narrative is obsessed with the belief that we build our own destiny; it's anti-fatalist at its most extreme. To support this narrative, we need Horatio Alger stories of rags-to-riches. Such stories of fantastic ascendency are hyperbole, of course. In real life, such success is rare. But isn't it rare everywhere? Isn't it even rarer in Europe, or South America, or China? The big difference is that Europeans or South Americans or Chinese don't seriously entertain such dreams, except as the butt of jokes or gripes about some corrupt official.
Quote:
Originally Posted by duster1979
The difference between people like my friend and thousands of other guys working for wages doing the same thing at the same skill level is a willingness to make sacrifices and the willingness to take a chance....
There are different kinds of hard work. Working assiduously on the assembly line, or being a devoted teacher and researcher in the university physics department, are examples of hard work. But they can't really be parlayed into large wealth. In this thread by "hard work" we mean not the dedicated to one's craft, but the deployment of entrepreneurial spirit that parlay's the craft into an enterprise where others (one's employees) are doing the quotidian hard work, and one's own hard work becomes more of an administrative and strategic fashion.
This article talks about millionaires, not billionaires. Lots of retiring baby boomers of middle class status are millionaires by net worth. They were probably born middle, lived a middle life, and now retire as affluent people. And they still live their middle class lifestyle. Becoming a millionaire is reachable for people in the middle.
No one is saying that a poor person can easily become a billionaire. Assuming such a straw man says how simple minded and intellectually lazy the speaker is. When someone is not bright, they assume an easy position to refute.
Most people are simply saying that your personal grit can get you far, even when you don't have that much resources. There is an abundance of examples, not just from previous generations but from the people around you.
The rejection of the idea of grit is irresponsible. It reaps short term benefits and pushes the hard work onto others and future generation. Under such a scheme, this society will eventually end up in poverty serving the elite left wing masters financial and power interests hike ruining hundreds of thousands of people's lives and those of their next generation.
Many Americans think that they are just entitled to something. It's like men assuming that they should make more than women. Or that a white person assumes that he or she deserves more. Only in this case, our first world people assume they deserve more, completely ignoring the fact that all they have today was the result of plundering the third world nations that are seeking a piece of the pie.
This is not liberal by any means. It is a culture of privilege dressed up in liberal sounding messages.
You act like he should let you live there for free. Is that what you want?
No, of course not, but let me ask if you think I'm getting a good deal.
The person from whom I'm renting does not own the house; he rents it from the owner and then rents out the extra bedrooms, padding the amount he charges so that he lives in the use for free. (The owner likes this low-maintenance arrangement; he's hands-off the tenant issues and mostly just collects rent.)
The house rent is X and I'm paying him nearly 5/9X. He also gets to collect room rent on the other two bedrooms. When I moved in he was laid off in a sector that was extremely slow at the time. He likes to drink and used up his full 99 weeks of unemployment and then got on SSDI.
A few weeks after I moved in, he picked up a woman at a bar and brought her home. (For him, going to bars is about picking up women and gambling; his actual drinking he does at home since it's much cheaper that way.) This woman just got out of drug rehab and needed a place to live, so she quickly moved in with him. She was on SSI and didn't work a day since she met him.
Since neither of them worked they pretty much stayed home and drank all day then they started fighting until either he kicked her out or she stormed out on her own. This happened about 2-3 times a week for three years; there have been police calls and both have been hauled off to jail twice for domestic violence. They broke up and she went back to drugs and he found another girlfriend and they fight a lot and he kicks her out a lot. He blows up a lot generally and this is a difficult environment in which to live.
What is the fair market rent for this room in this house?
No, of course not, but let me ask if you think I'm getting a good deal.
The person from whom I'm renting does not own the house; he rents it from the owner and then rents out the extra bedrooms, padding the amount he charges so that he lives in the use for free. (The owner likes this low-maintenance arrangement; he's hands-off the tenant issues and mostly just collects rent.)
The house rent is X and I'm paying him nearly 5/9X. He also gets to collect room rent on the other two bedrooms. When I moved in he was laid off in a sector that was extremely slow at the time. He likes to drink and used up his full 99 weeks of unemployment and then got on SSDI.
A few weeks after I moved in, he picked up a woman at a bar and brought her home. (For him, going to bars is about picking up women and gambling; his actual drinking he does at home since it's much cheaper that way.) This woman just got out of drug rehab and needed a place to live, so she quickly moved in with him. She was on SSI and didn't work a day since she met him.
Since neither of them worked they pretty much stayed home and drank all day then they started fighting until either he kicked her out or she stormed out on her own. This happened about 2-3 times a week for three years; there have been police calls and both have been hauled off to jail twice for domestic violence. They broke up and she went back to drugs and he found another girlfriend and they fight a lot and he kicks her out a lot. He blows up a lot generally and this is a difficult environment in which to live.
What is the fair market rent for this room in this house?
Fair market value is what someone is willing to pay to rent a room in the house. Period.
If you don't think you're getting a good deal, move.
Nothing to stop you from renting a house from an owner then renting out the extra bedrooms, is there?
There is a fresh supply of high school kids every year. We need people to do many other low skill jobs - bagging groceries, janitorial, etc.
Anyone doing these jobs should at some point say "I deserve better" so they should move on.
Who would do these jobs when high school kids are at school or late at night when high school kids can not work by law? So you are saying if they move on their will be jobs for all of them because I do not see how.
Fair market value is what someone is willing to pay to rent a room in the house. Period.
If you don't think you're getting a good deal, move.
Nothing to stop you from renting a house from an owner then renting out the extra bedrooms, is there?
Cue the myriad of excuses......
There's high turnover here and at least one room is vacant about half the time. So the market doesn't hold the rooms in this house in high regard or demand. What we get mostly are people moving into town from a different region of the country; they move in and are gone in a few months. The location kinda sucks too not hip at all but it's good if you like gangbangers and drive-by shootings.
Nothing to stop me from renting a house etc. Yeah, riiight. The house rent exceeds my monthly income; apparently you don't know how renting works in this country.
We also have a requirement for Landlords to register their property and obtain a business license.
More importantly, laws favorable to tenants continue to expand... such as longer notice periods and protection in foreclosure.
Remember... you are a customer and no one, Landlord or not, can force you to do business with them... let alone live in their property.
Shrug. Rent control is prohibited in Michigan and Oregon. Homeowners have a lot of resources especially in the college towns. Zoning is a powerful tool, and homeowners use it to cripple the supply of rental properties. Renters might be customers, but it's a landlord's market and the homeowners like it that way. High rents mean lots of money for landlords to keep their properties up to the lofty local standards.
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