Face it: the rich are MUCH smarter and harder working than you are.

I'm not that much smarter than my sister is, if at all. She works much more and much harder than I do or ever have. I have much more money than she has. I could write exactly the same thing about my dad. I got luckier than either of them.

NJ Possible wrote:

Big L wrote:

Says you. But that's just your opinion. A lot of smart people disagree based on plenty of good evidence (the chairman of economics at Harvard, for example). If you don't like it, why don't you start a company and pay everyone what you their they're worth.

Congrats on finding the one line I wrote that's an opinion. Cherry-picking points of discussion is for amateurs. Do you not think the widening gap is cause for concern when these companies have a proven shorter shelf life than similarly-sized corps in decades past? Are you not concerned when our personal savings dwindle to sh*t because major companies went public too early, new execs were brought in simply to handle the acquisition and good employees like you lose their jobs? This isn't some theoretical discussion -- this is our savings and our homes. Play games elsewhere.

No. I'm not concerned. People with truly valuable skills have nothing to worry about. Of course plenty of deadweight employees with expendible jobs convince themselves that they are a lot more important than they are, but such are the risks of self-delusion.

HRE wrote:

I'm not that much smarter than my sister is, if at all. She works much more and much harder than I do or ever have. I have much more money than she has. I could write exactly the same thing about my dad. I got luckier than either of them.

No. Presumably your sister had the same opportunities you had growing up. She made worse decisions than you did.

Stop making excuses for others wrote:

HRE wrote:

I'm not that much smarter than my sister is, if at all. She works much more and much harder than I do or ever have. I have much more money than she has. I could write exactly the same thing about my dad. I got luckier than either of them.

No. Presumably your sister had the same opportunities you had growing up. She made worse decisions than you did.

you are hilarious. So let me guess, you believe there is no such thing as luck or good fortune? GW Bush just made good decisions all his life and that is why he became extremely rich and the most powerful man in the world??? LOL

Stop making excuses for others wrote:

HRE wrote:

I'm not that much smarter than my sister is, if at all. She works much more and much harder than I do or ever have. I have much more money than she has. I could write exactly the same thing about my dad. I got luckier than either of them.

No. Presumably your sister had the same opportunities you had growing up. She made worse decisions than you did.

Yes. But at the time my sister made those decisions they seemed good. We only call them bad decisions now because of what happened afterwards. Similarly, some of my decisions looked bad at the time but don't look so bad now but only because my circumstances are pretty good.

Tyrannosaurus Rexing wrote:

Stop making excuses for others wrote:

No. Presumably your sister had the same opportunities you had growing up. She made worse decisions than you did.

you are hilarious. So let me guess, you believe there is no such thing as luck or good fortune? GW Bush just made good decisions all his life and that is why he became extremely rich and the most powerful man in the world??? LOL

Why are you trying to distract from my point by bringing up a highly anomalous situation? I was comparing two people with equal upbringings.

Self-denial wrote:

It's always amazing the lengths that people will go to to protect their egos.

It's kind of funny to me that no one tries to say that Tom Brady gets to play in the NFL because he had "connections" but people say this about elite money-earners all the time. I guess this is because it is easy to see that Brady is a lot better than you or I at football but it is much harder to "see" a top hedge fund manager in action.

And of course I'm talking in aggregate here. We all know there are counter examples like the WalMart heirs, but people like that are a minorit (albeit a highly visible one) of America's wealthy.

When I was younger I would have wasted my time writing you a thoughtful response.

Others have stated how flawed the logic is here. Smarter, hardworking is only one part of the equation. The larger factor is positioning (what field you are in, who you know, who you're parents are, etc.).

If I am a neurosurgeon working 80+ hours per week making $800,000, saving lives and serving a vital role in society, is a CEO of large widget company making $80,000,000 really smarter and harder working than me? By a factor of 100? Of course not. The market is not FAIR or a meritocracy by any means. Of course those in power have a vested interest in supporting the idea that it is.

Not linear wrote:

Others have stated how flawed the logic is here. Smarter, hardworking is only one part of the equation. The larger factor is positioning (what field you are in, who you know, who you're parents are, etc.).

If I am a neurosurgeon working 80+ hours per week making $800,000, saving lives and serving a vital role in society, is a CEO of large widget company making $80,000,000 really smarter and harder working than me? By a factor of 100? Of course not. The market is not FAIR or a meritocracy by any means. Of course those in power have a vested interest in supporting the idea that it is.

Too bad you were so stupid you picked the neurosurgeon career path over the CEO path. That mistake should be painfully clear to a learned person.

By your logic, which I expected to see as a response, the rich are smarter simply by definition. If wealth defines your intelligence, then you are just begging the question. If you ask instead how you do on tests or real world situations in various cases, then you'll see a much weaker relationship between income and intelligence.

Stop making excuses for others wrote:

Why are you trying to distract from my point by bringing up a highly anomalous situation? I was comparing two people with equal upbringings.

Just because 2 people grow up in the same family doesn't mean every aspect of their lives is exactly the same and that luck plays no role in how their lives turns out. You get this, right?

And the W Bush mention was just an example par excellence of how much good luck and fortunate circumstance can make up for bad decisions, average intelligence, and failure after failure and allow such a person to become greatly "successful" and wealthy. It is not nearly the exception or anomaly that you imagine it to be.

As an addition to my earlier post: My step brother owns a construction company with just him and his business partner doing all the work. Since he and his partner have no other employees, he makes a killing. However, he works hard labor for 60 hours a week, plus doing the bookkeeping himself. He definitely works way harder and goes about his work smarter than I do. He definitely earns what he makes and then some.

I have a flexible schedule that allows me to coach kids and train beacuse I own a company.

I have a lot of time to spend with my family and travel without having to ask anyone for time off.

I'm not poor, but I'm certainly not rich.

I know a lot of rich people who are tied down to their work and never do anything interesting. They strive to make more and more money in hopes of having a good retirement when they will be too old to really appreciate it. At any time I can grow my company into something I would have to look after all the time. I really don't want to do that.

I think I might have an edge on them with intelligence in that I'm in pursuit of things that make me happy. I'm not a believer in the idea that happiness can only be bought.

I'm not sure they work harder than me either. I work hard on coaching and make little money doing so but I'm not driven by the almighty dollar.

I also know quite a few trust fund folks that have never produced a dollar in their lives. I wouldn't classify that group as smart or hard working.

Because being smart is succeeding at hoarding income. No other facets of human experience are important.

That's why no rich people are miserable essentially 24/7

Making and keeping money has nothing to do with brains or hard work, it's all about connections and nepotism. Some may deny luck was involved, but they won't deny being connected.

There are millions of intelligent hard-working people, and the vast majority are employed by lazy rich people.

HRE wrote:

Stop making excuses for others wrote:

No. Presumably your sister had the same opportunities you had growing up. She made worse decisions than you did.

Yes. But at the time my sister made those decisions they seemed good. We only call them bad decisions now because of what happened afterwards. Similarly, some of my decisions looked bad at the time but don't look so bad now but only because my circumstances are pretty good.

Well isn't that just it - they "seemed good" but in reality they weren't.

No one has true clairvoyance but that does not mean decisions are not fundamentally 'good' or 'bad'.

Political policies even further distort the variance between 'good' 'correct decisions' and 'bad' 'incorrect decisions'. One need look no further than Massachusetts' $75k toll takers and $100k+ administrative assistants.

HRE - what made you lucky? How did you beat out your hard working sister?

Bad Wigins wrote:

Making and keeping money has nothing to do with brains or hard work, it's all about connections and nepotism. Some may deny luck was involved, but they won't deny being connected.

There are millions of intelligent hard-working people, and the vast majority are employed by lazy rich people.

I think if you work hard, you have a better chance of having a good life. However if you think hard work alone is going to get you the very best jobs, you are insane.

I have degrees from two ivy league colleges. From all the people I know, those that got the best paying jobs were super connected and from wealthy families. If your family is worth over 10 million, you will have zero trouble landing a great wall street job. Here are a couple of stories.

One of my friends was traveling overseas for a job interview with an investment bank everyone has heard of. After the interview, he was told he didn't get the job. The hiring manager asked what he was going to do with the rest of his time in the city. My friend said he was going to visit some of the companies his family owned locally. At that point the manager asked my friend why he hadn't mentioned who his relatives were and offered him a job immediately. The manager was literally begging my friend to join the company as he left the building. Once the manager realized that my friend was from a billionaire family, my friend went from unemployable to highly desirable.

Another friend is raking in 5-10 million a year as a hedge fund manager. We studied the same area but academically I was way more accomplished than he was. I was always baffled as to how he got his start in the industry whereas the doors always seemed shut for me. He gave me the "I work hard, I am super talented" bs speech. Turns out one of his relatives is worth over 75 million and during interviews he would let that fact slip out.

Finally during one finance interview I had, the interviewer told me his son went to the same school I attended and was offered a job at the firm but in an overseas location. I smiled and said that was great. He asked if I knew his son and I asked what his major was. It turns out the son majored in the equivalent of art history which was a joke of a major at the school I attended. Very impressive way to prepare for a career in finance! I am sure who his dad was in the company had no bearing on him being hired.

I could go on for days about politicians kids or super rich kids I know getting unreal job offers. I think it is important to work hard but who you know and how much your family is worth trump hard work and it isn't even close.

Vitamin I wrote:

hghfghfhf wrote:

So what? Is earning a lot of money worth it if you live in your office? I feel sorry for anyone that regularly works 60+ hours a week. Everyone I know making 150k+ a year either has a very stressful job or works insane hours. No thank you.

I admire your self awareness. Not everyone can hack it.

Pretty pathetic though that some people choose working all their awake hours instead of living a rich social life and a life full of interesting hobbies

fixed

It's almost impossible to distinguish good decisions from bad ones at the times they're made. Most of my sister's decisions seemed to be to get a second or third job and work as much as possible and essentially to become an adult as soon as she could. Most of my decisions were based on the idea of avoiding growing up and being able to get two runs in on most days.

So I avoided the work force as much as possible and went to school which meant that eventually I could make a lot more than she could for doing much less work. Then her marriage fell apart and she was down to living on child support which eventually went away. She also lives in our hometown where the last job opening was filled in 1977 or thereabouts so getting better paying jobs isn't a real option. There are hardly any of those there.. And her youngest kid has had many, many troubles over the last few years which have cost her money at times.

In hindsight, it's easy to say that she should have educated herself more and worked less, that she should have married someone else, maybe treated the youngest kid differently, etc. But what she actually did all falls into decisions that many people make and that turn out fine. How do you criticize someone for taking a second job when they need money badly rather than for getting food stamps or applying for subsidized housing?

I'm also a lot better off than my dad ever was and definitely not smarter nor harder working than he was. He had opportunities to make a lot more money than he did but the after effects of growing up during the Depression made him value security much more than wealth. Loads of people who had piles more than he had were not as smart nor did they work as hard or as much and that's fine. He knew what he was doing. But being rich or not is just not as simple or cut and dried as all the Wall Street fan boys here who think that being smart and working hard will do it believe it to be.

And the living standard in Massachusetts is better than that of much of the country. Part of that is because it is still possible here for normal people to make a decent salary so I'm fine with the $75k toll takers, who will not be around much longer, and the $100k administrative assistants who probably will.