As there are a total of ~540 billionaires in the US (out of a population of ~326M), I’m not sure what the import of your assertion is.
I don’t mean this to come across as a personal insult/attack, but your ‘poor people are poor because they make bad decisions’ meme is deeply misleading and stunningly ahistorical. (To say nothing of insulting, and victim-blaming.) Further, given that you are an educated person (Finance major, I believe you said), that you would offer the anecdotal hucksterism of Rich Dad Poor Dad (as opposed to actual data-based, peer-reviewed investigations) as evidence in support of your meme is as perplexing as it is unhelpful.
@anon50325502, I have no idea of what you hope to prove by plucking one name of many from a Wiki article and challenging that one individual’s credibility. (It’s not as if the cycle of poverty concept originated with her.) But if you find her unconvincing, here are the results of a Google search minus her name:
Throwing up a chart that shows income mobility (showing lowest 20% having 33% chance of earning $21k or less HH or 62% chance of max earning $41k hh) or the converse (Top 20% having a 37% of earning min $112k, mean $194k hh) does seem to show mobility - children from poor parents outperform negatively and children from rich families outperform positively.
Wages having meaning in regards to wealth but that is more applicable if we are talking several decades, in 99% of cases… More important is stocks (10% owns 81%) and real estate.
NeoLiberal economics, with its laissez-faire emphasis is very exciting - for black pool traders, Paris Hilton, the 158 families that contributed so much of the election donations, and multi national corporate titans. VERY EXCITING!
Here is a very comprehensive but interesting read for you. Bookmark it, because it is a real study as compared to 500 word snippet. Easily comprehensible for laymen.
There are like 3 names in the whole link you posted, her’s was the first I saw, and she’s not exactly the pinnacle of academic achievement. It would be like quoting Bannon as an expert on foreign relations.
If I had the disposable income I would pay him $5k to read that book and Cashflow Quadrant. It seems hokey but I truly believe that those books should be required reading for every school child. When you are raised middle class/poor and surrounded by people (family, friends, teachers) who all view money the same way you think that’s how the world works. Trade your time for money right? That’s what my parents, grandparents and entire extended family did. Go to school, work really hard, get a good job…that’s how you get prosperity (house, cars, too weak vacation). Right? No. That’s how you stay middle/lower class. You will not reach financial independence with those ideas about money, maybe by the time you reach 70 you can retire and pray they don’t cut SS benefits.
I am a Controller (majored in finance, career path is a long story) My personality is that of an analyst. I’m the kid who never ever stopped asking “why?” to the point my family limited the number of questions I could ask.
My mind chews on odd and esoteric questions in the background as I go throughout my day, “how do thermonuclear bombs work?”, “why do humans need society/government?”, “how can I raise my kids to be better than me?” etc… I can’t help it.
I grew up doing farm labor and worked as a machinist in high school. I loved fixing things, actually just tearing them apart… the fixing part is meh. Went to college cause I graduated 9th after coasting through HS.
My wife and I bought a business after college and we worked it really hard. It was going very well for about 3 years and then the market changed at the exact same time the export laws shut us down. Went from $250k in sales per year to $0 overnight. I should have liquidated right then but I stubbornly tried to hold on for 2 more years and nearly bankrupted us (BAD DECISIONS). Luckily I kept day jobs that whole time so we had a fallback. Now in 2017 back to lifting, sleeping 8 hours, eating right and my new hobby: politely debating politics. Lol
Nice, I’m a Sr. Financial Analyst myself so I can certainly relate (degree in accounting, though). I’m interested in going the Controller route, do you enjoy it?
@EyeDentist I believe your sources about generational poverty. Here’s the difference between your perspective and mine. I believe that the reason poverty (or wealth) is generational is because of ideas. If you live your entire life surrounded by people who hold a view of economics as a “rigged system” or that you will never get ahead because of the evil “other” that oppresses you. That becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If you tell a child that repeatedly they will fall into the same cycle of despair, bad choices and poverty. They will mirror the behavior of those around them, their life will follow the same pattern of their parents because examples/role models are a far more powerful teachers than words.
That’s why I brought up Kyosaki. I wasn’t attempting to rebut studies of poverty with a self-help book about wealth and how to attain it.
I am admittedly a bit obsesive about achieving financial independence so I can attend kids games when they’re old enough, take the wife to Paris, and be semi retired before I’m too damn old to enjoy it. I know it can be done and has been done by people with less resources than me… they figured out the game. I will figure it out or die trying. I want that for everyone within the sound of my voice…um text. Including posters who disagree with me @jasmincar .
Every society has had poor people, and we always will. I believe that the poor in the US have a better life than the poor in every other time and place in history. But that’s beside the point.
If you really truly want to help the poor how would you go about it? We have thrown trillions at poverty since the “great society” started. How did that work out? The nuclear family of poor america (all races) is crumbling and with it most hope of their escape. I believe that giving people the tools (ideas) to help themselves is the best possible way to help them break the cycle.
Thought experiment: you have a son you didn’t know about. He’s 3 years old, innocent and living in poverty. You cannot adopt him or send him money. You may only send him a letter with instructions on how to be successful in America. What do you put in that letter?
Go to school and work hard at it.
Don’t do drugs.
Don’t break laws.
Choose your spouse carefully.
Don’t start a family until you’re married and established.
Don’t get fat.
Avoid debt like the plague that it is.
Save money and buy assets with it, build your balance sheet so you don’t have to trade your time for money until you die.
@EyeDentist I’ve never traded so many posts with a liberal before and not been called names. PWI is a pretty cool place.
I think your arrow of causality is pointing in the wrong direction. People aren’t poor because they have self-defeating ideas; they have self-defeating ideas because they’re poor. The fact is, the vast majority of us middle-class-on-up folks wouldn’t have achieved what we have without the advantages with which we were born. Not suggesting we were all born with a silver spoon in our mouths; rather, that we had enough family, financial and educational support to get through. (Of course, many of the wealthy did enjoy said silver spoons.)
Are their exceptions–superstars among the poor who manage to bootstrap themselves to wealth? Of course. But by definition, it is not reasonable to expect everyone to be a superstar.
Further, there is a mountain of evidence concerning the devastating effects of intergenerational poverty on all sorts of factors that predict socioeconomic success. Importantly, much of the damage is done while the poor are toddlers/children, and is permanent (ie, results in irreversible changes to cognitive function). To then expect these individuals as adults to bootstrap themselves out of poverty by ‘making good decisions’ is unrealistic (to put it mildly).
There is deep disagreement re whether the Great Society programs have been successful, and I am not willing to concede that they have not been so.
That would be an excellent letter to send. Trouble is, the combination of poverty-associated stress, malnutrition, absence of early stimulation, etc, might lead to the letter falling on proverbial ‘deaf ears.’
So these individuals are victims to their environment?
EDIT: I’m waiting for a phone call and thought I’d check TNation. I have no intention, nor want to indicate that I can take the time to formulate a response.
Curiously, how do you and USMCC have so much time to get into internet debates? I’m trying to take my lower-middle class raised self to a 1%er, which requires me to… I don’t know, work.
Consider: Do they start off poor, and at some point verbalize self-defeating ideas? Or do they start off wealthy (or at least not-poor), verbalize self-defeating ideas, and only then become poor?
Setting aside the currently-fashionable coded implications that often adhere to the term victim: To a significant extent, yes.
The issue with this is that people have self-defeating ideas in general. These ideas aren’t specific to poverty.
We are all victims to something. The choice is our response. I went from living in a $4mm house in Montecito, playing college baseball, surfing and living on the beach to homeless living in northern California over the course of 2 months.
It’s after February 1, shouldn’t you be using double dutch accounting methods and funneling money to shell companies in Ireland and the Caymans so that the rich don’t have to pay their taxes?
