If the top 50% working long hours to give $2.7 trillion per year to the poor is "breeding resentment", then the problem is with the poor and not the amount or the system.

If you don't teach people to be self reliant, and further teach them that they're victims of an unfair system, you breed resentment no matter how much money you give them. It's just human nature. The cure for resentment is opportunity (it exists in spades in America) and a culture of self reliance/internal locus of control (which has been destroyed by the left in America).

It's amazing that you think $15 billion means anything. Just incredible. Do you not grasp the scale of US taxation and expenditure?

There will always be resentment on the other side. Resentment is a state of mind. That state of mind is created when the media (For clicks) and politicians (for votes) keeps beating it into your head that all the bad decisions you made in your life are not your fault, and its rich people's fault.

I have no problem at all with people hiring representation against the IRS, you'd be stupid not to.

its super unethical to not teach the poor how to become rich

Rich people are rich for very real, very clear reasons that can be learned by anyone who has an average IQ and a little bit of elbow grease. It's much easier to ***** about being poor than it is to learn to become rich.

I lived a pretty entitled, miserable life until I was about 30 or so, and frankly got fed up with blaming other people for my problems and nothing ever changing. Now I'm rich. If I can break free of the blaming mindset that kept me mediocre, anyone can.

Research backs up the handful of things that you need to do to avoid being poor.

1) Hold a job
2) Get a higher education
3) Don't have children out of wedlock
4) Don't commit felonies
5) Don't go into debt

It also backs up things that you need to do to become rich.

1) Have successful friends and discard unsuccessful ones
2) Follow the law of compounding returns
3) Don't trade your time for pittances
4) Work for yourself

No one is responsible for you but you. It's not unethical to teach anyone anything. All of the information that rich people have that poor people don't is freely available.

Great post!

The following three simple tips will allow you to achieve the things outlined above with a much higher likelihood.

1) Be born into a wealthy family.
2) Be born in the right location.
3) Be born the right color.

Bonus tip: It also helps to be born male.

Good luck!

Advanced member only tip:

1. Not necessarily. In some cases, sure, but it is not automatic. On the other hand, having an easy childhood without having to fight for anything can lead to weakness and lack of persistence in later life. Getting rich is difficult, it requires discipline and hard work. Adversity is the mother of invention and enterprise. This is why there are many self-made men and women who rose above their circumstances; and also why wealth is often destroyed by the 3rd+ generation of family legacies. I would prefer to front-load the pain, and reap the benefits later, than be born into luxury, only to suffer from being unequipped to overcome harsh realities of life and master the art of living.

2 & 3. True. But less important now than it was a generation ago, and I see that trend only continuing.

---

I don't know anything about you or what circumstances you were born into, but you come across in posts as a whiney self-righteous loser, who is filled with hatred and envy for people who are more successful than you. But do you really work as hard and as smart as them? Do you get up at 4 am every day and work relentlessly until you have nothing left in the tank? Do you take risks? Do you take responsibility for your life and circumstances, and do what is necessary to change them if you are not satisfied? Or do you expect the government to do all of that for you while you're sleeping and dreaming about an egalitarian utopia which requires no quid pro quo from you?

Your political outlook might have gotten you somewhere millions of years ago, when simple eukaryotes were swimming on a microbial mat and eating bacteria, with no nervous system, abundant food everywhere, and zero competition, before they evolved external digestion and began to cannibalize each other.

But the simulation has moved on. We have nervous systems now. You need a firmware update. Quit ****ing around, turn on your electroreceptors, and be a man.

I said higher likelihood, not guaranteed.
Not sure why you're addressing this to my post, but okay, csb.

Let's hope. The possibility of that is a real fear of many though, I'm afraid.


Well jesus don't let that stop you from running your mouth. C'mon, man!
yikes

A forty year old running a nine minute mile or being able to perform 30 pushups is much likelier if that person was lucky enough to be a high school athlete. Most of them would barely have to try to achieve those goals. Others would have to be much more diligent. But these are laudable goals and it would be a shame if you could be talked out of trying to achieve them (and be a big favorite if you did try) by someone who points out that there are a lucky few who can reach those goals with very little effort.

I agree. Likewise. it would be a shame to cancel all high school sports programs based on the logic that forty year olds might be able to run a 9-minute mile or perform 30 pushups anyway if they are very diligent.

Nothing I have posted could be reasonably taken as a dismissal of the benefits of hard work, discipline, and whatnot.

The turnover in wealth between generations is incredible. Being born rich helps you not be in the bottom 20% (and even then not as much as you think) but it's a huge net negative for maintaining or growing your wealth. The data is very clear
Yes, being born into a merit-based capitalist society like the US is very important. If you're born into a communist/socialist one you're screwed.
There is no evidence that this is a causative factor in the US. You're just making **** up now because you lack a functioning brain. Indeed, the six black billionaires the US (all self made) has disproves this notion. "The US is racist and unfair and success depends on skin color. And oh yeah a black person can amass a billion dollars starting from scratch in a lifetime" is a hilariously stupid juxtaposition. Do you even think before you type?

And there's also strong evidence against your notion. East Asians crush whites (the supposedly dominant race) in income and wealth accumulation. Why? Do you think they're crushing it because of their skin color? Or because they have a culture of hard work and internal locus of control, the things you erroneously believe matter less than skin color?

In what specific way does this help?

No, you just think these things are less important than skin color and starting wealth. And you're wrong. And incredibly destructive to the people you're morally posturing about by spouting this nonsense.

Hey dingus, my three spiffy tips are to increase the likelihood of being able to achieve the things listed in Wittgenheiny's post. Maybe shoot some clorox or hydroxy or whatever and rethink your reply.

Straw man will save you, dingus! Be diligent!

Your own words say this:
"Much higher" implies they're very important. The fact that you focus on them everywhere also implies their importance and primacy.

If you weren't so foolish you wouldn't be self owning like this, but if you weren't so foolish you wouldn't hold the views you do in the first place, so it's catch 22 I guess.

They are very important. But no, it doesn't imply more importance than the other, nor vice versa. Where's your re-worked reply to my 3 spiffy tips?

Ad hom will save you, dingus!


Anyway... we should take this to politics. There are new mods there so you should petition to get unbanned. Perhaps you can get re-banned for like the third time under a third set of moderators (not counting the many gimicks you've probably burned through over there).

I don't use gimmick accounts.

Your multiple posts equivocating/deflecting over which you think is more important is very cute. What you don't say ("I think race is less important than hard work in determining success") says it all.

I'd suggest moving to another forum too if I was getting owned as badly as you have in this forum. Traders like to think in facts and data, not ideology, and the facts and data don't support your ideology or politics.

You have addressed nothing of what I have actually posted. You are emotionally angry and unhinged. Not to worry, declaring yourself the winner will save you!

Here's a link to the live hearing of the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet

https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1288521100893315075

Bottom Line:

Toothsayer underestimates the advantages of white male privilege when it comes to achieving moderate success.

Max Cut underestimates how easy it is to overcome the disadvantages of not having those privileges.

Decent troll actually. One of your better ones.

It's actually a good thing that a lot of the population thinks the way Max Cut does about wealth.

If too many people start believing they can achieve wealth and take actionable fixed steps to get there, the margins would decrease significantly.

It's always funny to see the "people have no agency over their lives" folk walk into conversations that are so far above their depth.

We have an entire generation of data from Asians that emigrated off wooden boats with nothing in their pockets and within 1 generation accumulated more household wealth than white people that lived there for generations.

No location, no born into wealth, non white. Who knew sheer will and determination was a more important metric.


My current GF had such a money losing attitude when I met her. Had a 4 digit net worth. Money leaks everywhere. Thought a lot like how Max Cut told her to think.

She started mimicking my money habits and started saving a lot of money. Turned that into 6 figures of savings and with constant investment turned it into mid 6 figures by now.

She was born in complete poverty family.
Came from poor country.
Not a white male.

If she continued to have the Max Cut outlook on life she would remain poor.

Well I guess I have to take it all back now that I know the story of Tien's GF. That apparently proves circumstances of birth have no impact whatsoever on overall average chance to achieve the things in the list Witt posted.

Show where I even hinted at that, deep thinker.

I agree with Witt's list and suspect you do to. My only statement was about circumstances of birth having an impact on overall probability of achieving them. I am sorry you do not understand distributions and whatnot and that it leads you into comprehension failures and false conclusions. Read more. Also, I said nothing about relative impact compared to other things, like "sheer will and determination" for example. Read better.

It sounds like you are very successful financially. Congratulations on overcoming your, well, difficulty.

Max,

Your whole shtick in these conversations is to say you need to inherit money / be white / get lucky and you will be rich. Or as you love to say now, higher probability of being rich.

It's the most useless advice to give to anyone reading these forums or in real life. Just stack more useless information into people's heads about how being rich is perceptually unattainable. Amazing, job well done.


Things I started doing at 18 years old and even 15 years later:

Listened to thousands of hours of business podcasts. Listen to at least 1 per day.
Thousands more hours of business audios back 15-10 years ago.
Every single article I could find on my investing domain. Printed and made booklets out of it to read.
Read over hundred business books.
Spend thousands of hours analyzing market data.
Spend hundreds of hours analyzing successful investors and breaking down their actions and processes.
Invest every single dollar I can. For nearly a decade took no vacations.
Drove a garbage 20 year old car in my 20s. Was probably the worst looking car in the city.
Had to hide that car and pretend I didn't have one on dates.
Still drive a garbage ass 15 year old car.
Got a degree (probably important but don't use it now)


This is doable for anyone that isn't mentally lazy.

Or, eff all that, just be very frugal for at least a decade and invest every single disposable dollar.

"you need to" and "higher probability" are not remotely the same thing.

Your whole shtick is to put words in my mouth, despite me repeating it in the simplest terms, so you can take down a bunch of straw men. Anecdotes from your life blog are no rebuttal against the probability being higher.