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

I bombed Accounting twice and it took me three tries to pass Statistics even though I was up at 2-3AM desperately trying to learn both.

Frustration.

No MBA, thus no high-paying wall street job pour moi.

Will chime in on this since i have an interesting perspective. Was extremely lucky to get a job at a big bank out of college. Majored in business but didn't go to the best school (top 40) and had a good GPA but not flawless. My school in all honesty was probably easier than an ivy league to get into and to get above a 3.5 GPA. My family is not wealthy but we lived in a town next to a lot of wealthy people. A girl who had a crush on my in hs, her dad worked at a big bank and helped me get a summer internship than full time.

I will say in corporate finance / law / accounting the junior people work brutally hard. Like minimum get in at 9 leave at 11 at night. You could say I was connected but literally everyone i knew had a connection of sorts and usually their parents actually worked for that bank.

Medium level people in law firms and banks do very little. "Check" work and drafts that is about it. They are grossly overpaid. Some senior guys are maniacal and work harder than the junior people. Others barely work more than 30 hours a week and get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum.

Also some guys waste all their money, other guys have more modest incomes, SAVE and end up much wealthier in their 40s, so totally depends. Can't say somebody works harder or is smarter than another IMO.

Seems like most of you guys have been brainwashed by the left and have bought what they are selling.

Rich = Evil

Rich = Clearly gained by screwing someone else

Rich = Lucky

Rich = Lazy

Money and material things are bad.

What is "rich"? Is it anyone making more money than you or anyone living in a bigger house than you? Sounds a lot like "everyone faster than me is on PEDS".

*****

Yes, there are a few members of the "lucky sperm club" that are born into a life of privilege. Most people are not so lucky. The rest of the "rich", whatever that means, have likely gotten there by good decisions, some luck and planning.

There are a number of infamous lottery winners who are now broke. The winners were obviously "lucky"; made poor decisions; had no plan and now have nothing to show for it.

http://www.businessinsider.com/17-lottery-winners-who-blew-it-all-2013-5

There are also a lot of cases of pro sports figures who signed big deals, made poor life and financial decisions and are now broke. "Lucky" but made poor decisions and had no plan.

Smarter? Yes.

Harder working? No.

An I-Banker will never know what it's like to pull wire on a construction site, or practice 3-times a day for a football game that's going to take place in 6 months. The same way a plumber would struggle as a credit analyst.

The type of effort it takes to be successful in some fields is completely different from the type of effort it takes to be successful in other fields. Hard work to some may mean 14 hour work days staring at a computer screen,and to others it means waking up at 5:00 to be working on a job site at 6:00 in 20 degree weather.

Nice trolling. Well done.

First of all, narrowing wealth down to those two factors is pure stupidity.

Second, shame on everyone that took the troll bait.

I would agree that many wealthy people are harder working than me. I am kinda lazy with work because I like to do many things rather than focus on a single activity. It's not all about hard work, though. You need to work hard in the sort of things that will make you more valuable in the realm of things that people actually want to pay for. I could be the world's foremost expert on ergonomic keyboards. But not enough people value ergonomic keyboards for me to make much from such a realm of knowledge.

The intelligence part, no. I actually believe that higher intelligence can be somewhat of a disadvantage if your goal is to be rich, because you are hyper aware of all possibilities rather than narrowly focused on your current goal. It does not take big brains to figure out how to make money.

Meanwhile, the creators of the app "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" are raking it in. What a world we live in.

Then there is all that other stuff about wealth like inheritance, connections, likability, good looks, the right career field, saving and investing, taking risk, luck, buying into a real estate market at a good time, yada yada yada.

So basically, you're idiot to think wealth is all about intelligence and hard work, and you're idiot to take the troll bait here.