[Mongoose]

ITT we make broad assumptions about groups we're not part of.

[chief1983]

No, it also has to do with not having an attitude like...yours (iaz).

[iamzack]

Hard work helps, but even that's dependent on the intelligence you're born with, how many opportunities for education you have, how good the education you get is...

Hard work, determination, etc, relatively small factor in determining how much wealth a person will accumulate.

[Snail]

Hard work, determination, etc, relatively small factor in determining how much wealth a person will accumulate.

To be honest, I agree.

The world ain't fair, but it's still fun.

[chief1983]

So your point is that people who are less equipped - and not just by birthright - end up with less.  That sounds okay to me.

[iamzack]

People don't all have the same opportunities to succeed. It's silly to think they do.

[NGTM-1R]

So your point is that people who are less equipped - and not just by birthright - end up with less.  That sounds okay to me.

It sounded mainly like birthright, since that determines most of those things.

[General Battuta]

So your point is that people who are less equipped - and not just by birthright - end up with less.  That sounds okay to me.

No, I think that's the opposite of the point being made.

They're saying that people who are equally equipped in terms of drive, intelligence, and so on can end up with very different life outcomes because those factors aren't very important. Birth class, race, opportunities presented by the environs - those matter more. Stuff that's not in your control.

[chief1983]

"but even that's dependent on the intelligence you're born with"

How many smart, driven people do you know who couldn't find a way to make it?

[General Battuta]

Lots. A huge number.

Especially those who never get a chance to get a good education.

[iamzack]

Think about how many smart, driven people get the opportunity to "make it", and then realize that people (all people) with those opportunities are very small percentage of all the people there are. So -most- of the smart, driven people are probably lost.

[Mars]

I'm also astounded by how many complete idiots I meet on every college campus I've been on.

[Kosh]

Why'd you work there for 3 ****ing years then?  Couldn't find another place to work that would pay you more after a year?  Were you that bad at your job they didn't see the need to give you a raise ever?  Maybe that was some sort of hint?  Or was it really the case that it was a poorly performing company and there was no one else around to work for that would even pay that much, etc blah.  Sounds fishy to me.

You're assuming that all companies will compensate their employees appropriatly for a job well done. Sadly, this doesn't seem to happen as much as before.


EDIT:

So your point is that people who are less equipped - and not just by birthright - end up with less.  That sounds okay to me.

It also isn't always true. Take our last president, virtually all of his accomplishments were a result of one thing: his daddy's connections. Birthright does matter.

[chief1983]

Pointing out instances where birthright _does_ help doesn't prove that the opposite is true.

[General Battuta]

Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers' is a good treatment of the topic.

[Flaser]

Read this on Digg:

"I am a conservative.
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level
determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its
valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right."

[General Battuta]

Seriously.

[Mongoose]

I saw that here.  Wonder where it originated from.

[chief1983]

Regulation and actually offering it are different things.  Bank regulation was fine until government backed banks started competing with the private banks, and look where that left us.

[MP-Ryan]

Regulation and actually offering it are different things.  Bank regulation was fine until government backed banks started competing with the private banks, and look where that left us.

Fallacy.  Canada has one of the most heavily regulated banking sectors in the democratic world, and is in much better shape financially than pretty much all of the Western world.  And we have both private and government-backed financial institutions.  That shoots your theory right in the foot.

Corporate greed, lack of regulation, and capitalist idiocy are what's put us in the global financial pickle we're currently in.  The really hilarious thing is how the current mess is a direct result of the American Republican attitude towards regulation in general, but the Democrats are taking the fall for it.  That's slick.