上位 200 件のコメント全て表示する 278

[–]chairman55 28ポイント29ポイント  (11子コメント)

The way our education system functions is really almost designed to limit social mobility. Most people don't really understand how the world and the job market works when they're teenagers, which is now the time of people's lives where they are pretty much deciding their entire futures via how they react to the education system. Do well in high school, probably go to a good college -- even better if you have some kind of idea of what the most valuable courses of study are and are doing well enough in science/math classes to viably pursue them. All this is very dependent on having parents who invest attention and energy into your education and who can help you make the right choices. And there is really very little opportunity for people past their late teens and early 20s to go back and study a more lucrative field if they didn't do so. It's easy to miss the bus -- and not missing the bus is of monumental importance in how your entire life will turn our career-wise and there's a huge premium there for having attentive, knowledgeable parents. Just look how wealthy, successful parents approach their children's education.

I think what would be needed to fix this would be a radical, fundamental change of the education system. I don't think it's a system that functions well at all, really.

[–]steefen7 8ポイント9ポイント  (5子コメント)

Except, of course, for the Indian and Chinese immigrants who don't always have money in their backgrounds but still know it's important to study and work hard.

[–]chairman55 4ポイント5ポイント  (4子コメント)

I agree that money is not the only deciding factor here. However, those Indian and Chinese immigrants, even if they don't have a lot of money, are very involved in their children's education and help their children make strong choices for their college major, and make sure their children are doing well enough in high school to get into a strong college to study it. Nowhere did I say the only factor in quality and intensity of parent involvement is money, though it often is important and of course correlates strongly.

[–]steefen7 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

And what you just said makes more sense to me than throwing more money at a problem we aren't prepared to speak honestly about. Look at all the successful immigrant groups to the United states and I guarantee you will find at the core a high level of community and parental involvement.

One of my international friends scored poorly in an exam a while back. If they didn't turn around their grade they would have been kicked out and sent home. Literally all of this person's friends were calling and checking in, sending notes, offering to help study. This person eventually turned things around on their own, but massive support was there from their community. This is the hallmark of a community that can succeed without money.

Everyone was poor a hundred years ago and yet some people escaped into the middle class. If money was the key factor to the exclusion of others, we'd still have the huddled masses described in that periods literature. To me it's obvious why we talk about money over parenting: governments can't buy votes by telling people to be better parents. Frankly, I think the politics on both sides have let down the people we want to help.

[–]wren42 [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

agreed that parental/community involvement seems to be the driving factor - in a word, culture.

However, it can still be the case that our education system is broken, in that it requires that of the students' families. Systematic changes that allowed for more effective identification and nurturing of high potential students could eliminate that requirement.

[–]PizzaPieMamaMia -1ポイント0ポイント  (1子コメント)

Yea but this whole thread and this article is talking about how the rich and powerful are passing on the ability to attain the same for their children. And your hypothesis is meant to explain why this is the case. However, the aforementioned immigrants who have neither power nor wealth completely turns this theory on its head.

If being involved in your kid's education and ensuring success is not off limits to the poorest and most powerless immigrants, then what does power and riches have to do with it?

[–]postmodest 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Could the previous century's history of ghettoized business districts and Chinese business associations help explain the difference between immigrant Chinese poor and immigrant Latino poor?

[–]Ataredised 6ポイント7ポイント  (3子コメント)

You realize your whole argument is actually putting the blame on the parents/student rather than the education system, right?

[–]chairman55 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't think so. I blame the fact that way the education system functions puts an undue premium on the level and quality of parental involvement, with insufficient opportunities for individuals to make up for that when they're older, more experienced, and more knowledgeable themselves about how things work.

[–]bobskizzle 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

The parents are old enough to understand how it works. Whether they're smart enough and care enough to do so and make meaningful decisions in their parenting of their children, is up to them.

[–]Sadbitcoiner [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Look up John Gatto's work. You are right on the money.

[–]pigsnoutman 47ポイント48ポイント  (23子コメント)

The result is that America is one of only three advanced countries that spends more on richer pupils than poor ones, according to the OECD (the other two are Turkey and Israel).

The most solvable problem. Government spending should be at least neutral if not progressive.

[–]darwin2500 12ポイント13ポイント  (4子コメント)

The problem is that funding is local, so each local government is neutral by student, but local governments with rich people in them have more money to spend than local governments with poor people. To fix this you'd need a lot of federal funding for local education, which would upset a huge beauracracy and cause political outrage among a large states-rights contingent.

So, conceptually easy, not that easy to implement in practical terms.

[–]browb3aten 3ポイント4ポイント  (3子コメント)

More like the opposite of states' rights since it's more about city/county vs state, not state vs federal.

[–]AmpsterMan 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Well it's a bit of both. Some states have local funding, others state wide, but all localities recieve income from the federal government due to No Child Left Behind and Common Core.

The marble cake government structure we have is a strange beast

[–]vecnyj [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

If a state wanted to fund schools completely through their state budget, they could.

[–]despicable_secret 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

That's not what opposite means.

[–]lamemale 25ポイント26ポイント  (9子コメント)

Tell that to the people who live in rich towns with good schools.

[–]Boxy310 24ポイント25ポイント  (1子コメント)

Free child care subsidized by the government would also be extremely helpful. Many studies suggest that children of low-income parents benefit greatly from good child care, while children of middle-high income parents tend to not be much improved. There may be some aspects of prosocial interaction going on there, rather than being a "latchkey kid".

[–]AlexanderNigma 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Government spending on education [and most things] should be neutral to the economic class of the receiver. Sadly, the only way I ever see this happening is a "per-pupil budget", centrally controlled system at the Federal level which is likely to backfire badly politically.

The only real "class favoritism" that should happen is making sure the poor have enough to survive if they aren't economically competitive. That and the overall tax system should be progressive, whatever the exact source of that income might be.

[–]crankypants15 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

The most solvable problem. Government spending should be at least neutral if not progressive.

They've tried this in Michigan. Michigan public schools get the same amount of funding per student... from the state. But local taxes can be levied and provide additional public school funding in rich districts, where the parents can afford the extra taxes. But local taxes in rich districts are often passed, and renewed, giving more funds to the rich districts, so those kids have an advantage to any other kid in a poor district. We still have rich and poor school districts because of local taxes.

But the problem is not just about funding. Good teachers don't go to, or don't stay at, dangerous schools like in Detroit or Flint. The schools, being poor, cannot pay the good teachers enough to stay. Even if the schools could pay them enough to stay, many wouldn't as they fear for their life. (I have a relative who worked in Detroit Public Schools.)

It doesn't matter how many metal detectors you have at each door, some kids will still punch you in the face just because they don't like you. That's not the dominant culture, but it's still a part of the culture there.

[–]parksdept 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Even if government spending were neutral this problem would still exist as wealthier parents would subsidize their children's education... but the reality is that the way schools are funded, property taxes, leads to wealthier areas with more money in schools, it would take active discrimination by the government against these areas to correct the imbalance.

[–]PizzaPieMamaMia 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Only if there's an equal distribution of talent and ability among the rich and poor. However, if innate talent and ability are concentrated among the rich, then you'd be doing the country a huge disservice by investing too much in the unproductive members and too little in the productive ones. To get the best returns, you have to invest in the best talents.

[–]ryph [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

I think we as a society have forsaken 'the best returns' in order to attempt to prop up the lowest common denominator. See: No child left behind.

I disagree with it, yet I've come to learn there's much 'society' prefers that I don't like. One is the focus on the collective over a sudden. What ever happened to rugged individualism in this country? O well such is life yada yada

[–]norsurfit -3ポイント-2ポイント  (0子コメント)

But rich people control the government in the US.

[–]Not_Pictured 21ポイント22ポイント  (29子コメント)

We need to redistribute good parenting.

[–]crankypants15 3ポイント4ポイント  (7子コメント)

There's not enough good parents to go around, even if that were possible to do and pass into law. How about enacting a parenting license before one has kids?

[–]Not_Pictured 4ポイント5ポイント  (6子コメント)

I was being tongue-in-cheek. I think we need to stop paying people to have kids out of marriage.

Otherwise there aren't many good answers. Throwing money at them just makes it worse.

[–]wren42 [スコア非表示]  (5子コメント)

I think we need to stop paying people to have kids out of marriage.

well that's a pretty prejudiced view.

[–]Not_Pictured [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

Meaning what? Wrong?

[–]wren42 [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

It's a complete non sequitur as far as educational achievement is concerned, and is bigoted to boot. Unless you aren't making a jab at "welfare babies", while throwing in a healthy heaping of normative christian values?

[–]patatepowa05 [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

how is it predjudiced to say that giving an incentive to have children will result in lower quality parenting for a child born out of that incentive.

[–]wren42 [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

sorry, are you suggesting that all unmarried people are low quality parents? Just want to clarify.

[–]patatepowa05 [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

I think giving people incentives to have children inside or outside a marriage is wrong, if i had to choose between the two i would say that parent aren't married, it makes it slightly worst, but if you want to argue that unmarried parents make the best parents im not gonna argue with you, what I care about is the financial incentive to have kids, married or not.

[–]solidsnack9000 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

Well, we have a puzzle here. If good parenting is better, it should lead to more offspring, and more successful offspring, in the sense of successful that matters to evolution -- offspring with offspring with offspring with offspring, ad infinitum. So generation by generation we'll see less bad parenting.

If bad parenting actually leads to lots of offspring with offspring, ad infinitum, then is it really "bad"? Or are we bringing judgment to one of those things, like earthquakes and aurora and the stars, that demonstrate the independence and greatness of natural forces?

[–]Not_Pictured 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

While bad is subjective, I'm using in the traditional sense. Stupidity, criminality, hitting kids, rape, etc.

[–]C4L_R3VOLUTION 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Darwinian fitness is objective while good/bad parenting is subjective.

[–]abudabu[S] -3ポイント-2ポイント  (17子コメント)

Just the money that enables good parenting.

[–]newprofile15 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

Right, there isn't an actual distinction between good and bad parents. It's all just the money right?

It's impossible to imagine variations in personal responsibility, skill, effort, and wisdom... what kind of world do you live in where you see awful parents and you see good parents and you think "oh, well the only difference there is one is rich and one is poor."

Do you imagine that single parents (one of the biggest predictors of success/failure for their children) all just become single parents by accident? No bad decision-making involved from the mother or the father? What additional money is required to prevent people from getting pregnant out of wedlock (condoms are already freely available) or from staying together when they have children?

[–]heavenlytoaster 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Personal responsibility doesn't real in the world of post-modern sociobiological determinism!

[–]Not_Pictured 7ポイント8ポイント  (13子コメント)

You don't need money to not abuse your kids.

http://occupycorporatism.com/cornell-study-rich-people-abuse-kids-less-poor/

Child abuse is a leading indicator of poverty, prison and a whole host of different things.

Single motherhood is a leading cause of poverty AND child abuse, and we subsidize it to the tune of over $30,000 per mother per year! How much money do they need to stop hitting their children?

*http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2817087

http://www.nber.org/digest/jan00/w7343.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/12/05/grothman-single-parents-welfare/

In fact, people receiving tax money right now are many fold more likely to be abusing their kids than those paying it.

*Edit: Added the link.

[–]bartink 5ポイント6ポイント  (9子コメント)

Child abuse is a leading indicator of poverty, prison and a whole host of different things.

So is poverty in relation to those things, including abuse. So the question I'd have is whether or not abuse is causing poverty more or poverty is causing abuse. We know that poverty affects the brain in some pretty bad ways.

[–]Not_Pictured 3ポイント4ポイント  (8子コメント)

How much money do you need to not hit your kid?

If you want to argue we aren't spending enough, I demand evidence that anything we've spend has improved things for abused children.

[–]bartink 3ポイント4ポイント  (7子コメント)

You just finished telling someone that this is the economics sub and we have higher standards for evidence. I would point you to your own advice.

[–]Not_Pictured 2ポイント3ポイント  (6子コメント)

I've cited ~10 sources in the last hour here. I have no idea what you're talking about.

[–]xxam925 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

Your use of the word subsidize implies that we are encouraging single parenthood which is outrageous. We can't fix stupid or make abortion mandatory so what is your solution? Pull the rug out? Crime would skyrocket.

[–]newprofile15 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Wait, how can you possibly claim we aren't encouraging single parenting through subsidies? We obviously are.

[–]Not_Pictured 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Your use of the word subsidize implies that we are encouraging single parenthood which is outrageous.

This is an economic sub. What happens when you pay people for a particular behavior?

You can prefer to not be encouraging it, but you are.

Comparison of income redistribution to single households. (Keep in mind single mother households receive the super-majority of the money)

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/Screen%20Shot%202013-09-26%20at%205.30.23%20PM.png https://dpcrandall.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/heritage-obama-welfare-spending-graph1.jpg

Citation: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-war-on-poverty-turns-50-why-arent-we-winning/282832/

Other: http://visionandvalues.org/docs/familymatters/Miller_Tracy.pdf?cbb716

We can't fix stupid or make abortion mandatory so what is your solution? Pull the rug out? Crime would skyrocket.

Tapering would make more sense than pulling the rug out.

Can I get a citation that crime would skyrocket?

Some light reading: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/11/how-welfare-undermines-marriage-and-what-to-do-about-it https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/soc_sec/hfemale.htm

[–]bobskizzle 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is such a Millennial-centric statement. Entire generations of Americans were brought up by parents who earned very little but worked their asses off to provide for their children's future. Why do you think Oriental people have a reputation for excellent academic performance? Because they had money? HAHAHAHA

[–]OliverSparrow 23ポイント24ポイント  (12子コメント)

Lack of social mobility "matters" economically only if human potential is being lost. You would expect high mobility societies - Denmark - to outperform low mobility ones (US). That regularity doesn't show up in the data. If human potential is not being lost, then the issue becomes one of political concenr. The key is to know whether social class is a reflection of assortative mating, in which the gene complex that defines fluid intelligence is strongly selected by social background. We know that about 60-75% of the difference in fluid IQ is defined genetically, so the question is whether bright people and the less bright tend to marry in accord with their intelligence or despite it. This seems to be generally the case:

[Reports a] study, carried out in a Cambridge suburb, which measured the similarity in IQ and some personality traits between spouses. In both sexes mean IQ scores tended to diminish from social class I to V. [...] Assortative marriage was found for IQ components.

However, the outcome social mobility seems to vary sharply between countries. The Economist reports a major study on mobility in the US. The study showed that (1) this had not changed since 1971 - contrary to popular opinion - and that (2) the US has low mobility as compared to other nations. Models of the US population largely agree on the key variables, which emphasise the role of genetics and the crystallisation of IQ through access to education and ability in it.

An OECD study confirms marked differences between countries. (Fig 5.10 repeats the chart shown above for EU conuntries.) Unlike the model that is shown in daigram form above, the OECD did not measure biological variables, such as intelligence. It notes that parental social class has a major effect on that of their offspring, but attributes this to access to education and other effects.

The correlation between crystalised intelligence and social mobility is statistically robust. The question is whether underlying, fluid intelligence is equally strong, or thwarted by poor relative education. Clearly, international differences in mobility imply that this has some validity. However, many studies eg this point to innate mental ability as the dominant feature of real world mobility.

The results show that intelligence test scores in childhood are associated with class mobility in adulthood uniformly across all social classes. There is no evidence that those from underprivileged backgrounds have to be disproportionately able in order to reach the professional classes.

It's worth noting that if (1) intelligence is largely inherited and if (2) intelligent people tend to inter-marry, then nations that offer broad access to economic activities will become more unequal, and sediment into strata. Nations which hold back such access - eg by slow growth, a very focused economy and so on - will have low mobility, generating a spurt in mobility when this situation changes.

[–]darwin2500 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

Lack of social mobility "matters" economically only if human potential is being lost

Correct. This issue is not about how society is creating an economic problem, it is about how economics is creating a social problem. If you don't care about social problems, even if they have economic causes, then this issue probably shouldn't be of interest to you.

[–]Iron-Fist 11ポイント12ポイント  (7子コメント)

The problem isn't necessarily that mobility has decreased, the problem is the inequality definitely has. The American Dream was a modest one of establishing yourself and your family in the middle class, with a high level of security to allow for efficient resource allocation and a wide range of opportunity to foster the best out of yourself and your family (read: children). The defining feature of the middle class wasn't luxury goods, it was a sweet spot of access and security comparable to the wealthy.

When the middle class shrinks, so too does the ability of a larger and larger segment of people to invest properly (need an emergency fund and basic personal infrastructure like housing and transportation first) or gain access to effective "value added" services like education or high demand skill training. Poorer people are less able to take risks or follow opportunities. Even things like assortive marriage becomes more difficult when time and resources available for meaningful and diverse social interaction become more and more scarce.

[–]-Pin_Cushion- 4ポイント5ポイント  (6子コメント)

Poorer people are less able to take risks or follow opportunities.

A good example of this is how, for many people, choosing the wrong major in college is a massive and often unrecoverable setback for the rest of their lives.

Going back to college later is simply not an option for many people because of the huge costs (in both time and money), relative to their income and assets. Either they pick the correct degree at the age of 18-20, or they work at Starbucks and buck for hourly supervisor in a few years.

[–]Sassywhat -2ポイント-1ポイント  (5子コメント)

The job opportunities for various majors are known when you go in, and usually don't change drastically in 4 years.

You can still be fucked by bubbles bursting and stuff, but the information is there to choose a major likely to have jobs, and if someone chooses women studies over computer science, it's their fault. What is the government going to do? Assign people majors instead of letting them choose?

[–]chairman55 4ポイント5ポイント  (4子コメント)

Known by whom? In my experience most high school guidance counselor give a tumbs up to any student's intended major, as long as he's planning to go to college. You have most of the secondary education system screaming that college is the best option, all college graduates make X% more than non-graduates, and spend a very considerably smaller amount of time differentiating between courses of study.

[–]Sassywhat 0ポイント1ポイント  (3子コメント)

The numbers for open jobs vs people to fill them is available is widely available online. And I would hope that going to a university advising office is honest about job statistics. If you go in to college with the mindset of "I want to rise into the middle/upper-middle class", and don't choose a major that offers a good chance of doing that, it's not because anything was hidden from you.

[–]thepasttenseofdraw 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Ah yes the population we don't trust to make simple decisions about alcohol or rental cars is definitely going to have the ability to inform themselves about a choice that will directly effect the rest of their lives.

[–]-Pin_Cushion- 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

Something I felt the article in the OP glossed over is that very often children of poor parents often are not taught the finer points of "How to get a non-stupid degree."

You have to know to ask the proper questions before the availability of answers matters. For my part, it never occurred to my parents that there was such a thing as a "stupid degree" because neither of them had one. The same goes for my wife's parents.

Also, information being readily available online is still a fairly new thing. Before the early 2000s finding good information online was incredibly challenging, if it was even available.

The bottom line is that degree-picking is a very new skill that many people don't have, and don't even know they need.

And, for my part, the university advising office was more interested in getting me to major in a "broadly useful liberal arts degree that would show employers that I was a well-educated person who could easily train for a variety of future work scenarios" than they were in measuring ROI on my tuition investment. Tuition and fees were barely mentioned, and never actually quantified.

[–]LordBufoBureau Member 25ポイント26ポイント  (2子コメント)

Only matters according to what metric? Because that's a normative statement and my moral sentiments do not agree.

[–]shoogenboogen 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think the poster was clear: according to output. And your moral sentiments are included in his/her "political concern." And I don't think s/he made a normative statement on whether because it is a political concern it is any less important, just a different concern than a purely economic one.

[–]heavenlytoaster 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Only matters according to what metric?

Any economic metric?

[–]jamesqau 68ポイント69ポイント  (112子コメント)

Wait... It's wrong to meet a suitable mate, and raise intelligent children and bestow on them knowledge to succeed, because it causes further success?

I'm confused. I don't know how to society anymore.

Jokes aside, there is definitely a problem with donations creating preferences, but let's be honest, the college system isn't the only way to success, far from it. Attitude/mentality is the deciding factor and can be learned, and is readily available for free across the internet. (I went to a community college for 1 week and dropped out, but I've done well for myself, by my standards.)

Never before has it been easier to learn how to compound wealth, but not that that matters.

If the suggestion is anything other than a meritocracy (which is absurd), then I'm not even sure what's being said. Equal opportunity and equal outcome are not the same. Opportunity is everywhere. Always has been, always will be. Telling yourself that it isn't (even if that were true), wouldn't help anyways.

Edit for holy wow the circle jerk here is huge. TIL that insane amounts of people despise rich people and truly believe they cannot be successful. This narrative as opposed to when I was younger where most seemed to believe they could be anything. Truly worrisome indeed, for when people begin to hate the rich, revolutions have happened, and truly horrific events thereafter (Nazi Germany, Communist China, French Revolution).

[–]vgasmo 48ポイント49ポイント  (34子コメント)

"Never before has it been easier to learn how to compound wealth" but isn't it true that social mobility is very low in the EUA? So, social mobility is,at best, stagnated thus your aception is not true.

[–]LordBufoBureau Member 44ポイント45ポイント  (0子コメント)

Social mobility in the U.S. is the same as usual: not very much.

[–]dcman00000 19ポイント20ポイント  (1子コメント)

There was a study about a year ago or so talking about social mobility in the U.S and it concluded that its about the same as its been since the middle of the twentieth century. I remember it being kind of big news

[–]chaosmosis 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

The Son Also Rises by Gregory Clark argues that social mobility has always been the same as it is now. I don't believe his conclusion, but I have never seen anyone able to find fault with his method, so that is quite a pickle.

[–]jamesqau -5ポイント-4ポイント  (27子コメント)

Whether something is readily available and easy to learn, and whether or not people take advantage of it, are 2 different things.

Again, the issue here is mentality and attitude. If there is any real difference between being raised in a wealthy household versus a poor household it is that in a wealthy household, children will often be taught that their efforts will produce results. In many poor households, this is not as often accepted to be truth. If you do not believe your efforts will avail you any reward, why try? (There is a technical term for this phenomena but it slips me.)

Here in lies the true problem, and one that can be fixed, as opposed to blaming college costs (which are a natural reflection of supply and demand), or other social issues (racism, sexism, classism, and whatever else applies to someone who feels they haven't received a fair chance).

[–]Iron-Fist 57ポイント58ポイント  (15子コメント)

It's call "Effort Optimism" and it is a pretty big differentiator between rich and poor people. Poor people who fail at something often don't have the resources to try again and learn from their mistakes and gain confidence, simultaneously they will have social pressure not to risk scarce resources even when opportunities present themselves. More than that, for many poor people they do not have the connections necessary to GUARANTEE success, even something relatively conservative like going to college could easily back fire if they are unable to find a decent paying position in the open market afterwards. People with more safety net and greater resources can try more things and have greater social incentive to do so, and can count on their family network to provide them a high floor even if they prove unspectacular.

The worse part is that perceived level reward for effort is often true: a rich kid will get greater reward for the same effort than a poor kid. A prime examples might be famous C student GW Bush.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effort_optimism

[–]Bay1Bri 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

A prime examples might be famous C student GW Bush.

But he got into Yale and Harvard so he is smart and did better and worked harder to get to that point! His father being rich and the head of the CIA had nothing to do with it!! /s

[–]jamesqau 0ポイント1ポイント  (13子コメント)

Ah yes, thank you. I believe this is it.

I think it's obvious that people with money or connections will have more/better chances. There isn't a real way that one can remove this, nor should they necessarily. Someone who works hard, saves their money, should rightly be able to pass their protection on to their family.

Reality isn't fair. Being born in Ethiopia isn't fair compared to being born in America. That said, there are some things that can be done on an educational level that would have material improvements as opposed to simply blaming rich people as the problem.

I think the wiki article is a bit simplified. It seems try to apply to all minorities, specifically blacks and hispanics as it works against them. However, think about Asian minorities, who have the highest median income, as well as the most college graduates (more so than whites).

I think there are some deep cultural issues that need to be addressed aside from better education in schools to fix the economic imbalance. If African Americans think it's cooler to sell drugs and buy flashy things (this is a HUGE generalization, but using for example) than do well in school and build a career, then there is going to definitely be some mental conflict at play, which will inhibit their ability to perform in a competitive society.

What drives a lot of this? I think it's culture. A lot of popular music promotes counter-productive behavior (drugs, drinking, frivolous spending, poor selection in men/women, etc).

Why does this exist to a lesser extent in Asian communities? How can it be extrapolated into other cultures? Will Asians lose this culture as they assimilate more deeply? Why do Asians participate less in "glamorous" careers (acting, sports, politics)?

How were whites (and modern Western nations) able to become wealthy and powerful. Why didn't African nations do so as well (prior to colonization/slavery)? It's quite interesting to analyze the behaviors of humans and the results it has on their success. I think this analysis has the real answer. Not blaming rich people for existing problems.

[–]bushwakko 13ポイント14ポイント  (2子コメント)

Someone who works hard, saves their money, should rightly be able to pass their protection on to their family.

Someone who works hard and saves their money, might still not have much to pass on. You are assuming a strong link between hard work (or basically "doing the right thing") and successful outcomes.

[–]AmpsterMan 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Well, to be fair, success without hard work is less common than hard work without success.

Just because there are extremes at both ends of the spectrum, i don't think that the general idea that Effort = Gains is a bad generality to hold

[–]steefen7 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

There is a strong link between working hard and succeeding. In fact, it's probably the best predictor of success that cuts across class groups. The flip side is someone who is resistant to the big money-draining vices like alcohol, drugs, gambling, scams etc

[–]draekia 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

Asian minorities are a poor example because there is a huge gap between certain groups there, as well.

The class you are born into has a huge influence on the class you become now (with notable exceptions, of course). Recognizing huge disparities is not the same as blaming the rich. Did you read the article?

[–]Iron-Fist 11ポイント12ポイント  (4子コメント)

Here's the thing, the systemic obstacles for Black people in the US, and to a marginally lesser extent hispancis, don't exist for Asians. Asian immigrants (Chinese and Japanese in particular) in the most recent waves in the 70's and 80's were actually RICHER than the average american, and more educated. Meanwhile a lot of the poorer Asian ethnic groups (filipino, hmong, Laotian, Cambodian) continue to struggle and do not reflect the higher achievement of the more well to do Asian groups. Blacks in the US still struggle under pretty openly racist regimes throughout the country (look up the Justice Department report on the police in Ferguson for a good example). Hispanics as well, look up the the Arizona Safe Neighborhoods law which allows anyone who looks hispanic to be stopped by police for no other reason. That's before even getting into the (arguably even more serious) issues of pretty blatant economic disenfranchisement through things like redlining, housing discrimination, credit denial, and racial wage gap. These are things that the richer, more recent Asian immigrants to the US simply never had to deal with those kinds of problems and jumped right into society with an actual lead on white people in terms of wealth and education (most coming after 1965, when very racist quotas on asian immigrants were repealed).

You talk a lot about culture, but the fact of the matter is that culture has little to do with it. It's all about how much money your parents have. Modern African immigrants, who also tend to be wealthy and educated, outperform whites despite being deeply involved in the cultural stereotypes you blame. Furthermore, drugs and drinking and poor mate selection are hardly a racial thing: white people do drugs at the same rate as black people yet suffer the legal consequences of that at a far lower rate due to more lax policing and better access to competent legal aid.

White western countries, in all likelihood, rose to prominence on the back of a lot of luck. Disease was their friend, as were the East-West trade routes facilitating technological trade. A good (if somewhat controversial) read on the subject is Guns, Germs, and Steel.

I can't help but notice some familiar rhetoric in the IQ ideas you have. Are you familiar with the Pioneer Fund?

[–]AmpsterMan 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

You aren't wrong in this assesment.

As a child of Cuban immigrants, i am much better off than the vast majority of Mexican immigrants because my parents were given immediate refuge in the U.S. Furthermore, i have see Doral, a neighborhood of Miami, grow from a swamp to a thriving lower-to-upper middle class neighborhood in the last 15 years due to the massive brain drain that Chavz caused in Venezuela. Fortunately or not, many aspects of who we are are determined before birth. Whether society should dampen,exacerbate, or stay away from that, i guess, is the discussion worth having.

[–]kingmanic 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

Asian immigrants (Chinese and Japanese in particular) in the most recent waves in the 70's and 80's were actually RICHER than the average american, and more educated.

70's and 80's? No. Most came with almost nothing and worked for min wage for the next 20 years. My family was one of those. However most who could muster the effort to come over tended to be extremely self motivated which is why that wave of immigrants seemed to do so well. My parents barely made above min wage but worked 60-80 weeks to bootstrap their kids. More recently, those Chinese and Japanese immigrants come with more money.

[–]Iron-Fist 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

After the ban in the 60s was lifted, the new wave of immigrants from China and Japan were far wealthier than those who came before, not rich but richer and more educated than average white people. I'm trying to find my source for that but it's eluding me.

[–]PrivateChicken 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

What drives a lot of this? I think it's culture. A lot of popular music promotes counter-productive behavior (drugs, drinking, frivolous spending, poor selection in men/women, etc).

Ah yes, clearly it's that damn hip hop keeping the black man down. It's surely a larger factor than legacy of racist policies throughout the 20th century. The GI bill neglecting african veterans, and unfair housing policies come to mind.

[–]MissVancouver 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The trouble with hiphop is that it's very easy to perceive it as the reason why kids listening to it can make bad choices, if all you're hearing is random snippets of random gangsta rap. I'm not a fan of rap or hiphop at all but I'll be the first to suggest that people listen to K'naan's Take a Minute to have a better understanding of its power to do good for disenfranchised youth.

[–]kingmanic 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think it's obvious that people with money or connections will have more/better chances. There isn't a real way that one can remove this, nor should they necessarily. Someone who works hard, saves their money, should rightly be able to pass their protection on to their family.

Think of this another way; when it's easier for a select group of people to advance your society is less of a meritocracy and you have inefficiency. So instead of the best people directing the use of resources and coming up with new ideas and leading others; you have the best of a small group. It helps the system as a whole to allow everyone to contribute and that has been one of the defining traits of the American social system versus the others. Social mobility. When the rest of the world was deeply locked in class systems America was more socially mobile where someone could advance in life through handwork and ingenuity and it gave them huge advantages and attracted the best and brightest. However in the last 30 years the rest of the world caught up and America got mired in some issues which made them far less socially mobile.

To fix this, they could change the system that fund education. Right now it's too predatory in the loan and institution department. Education is a way to establish connections and better your chances. The ethnic groups that heavily stress it; have done very well.

However, think about Asian minorities, who have the highest median income, as well as the most college graduates (more so than whites).

That's the emphasis on education and the willingness of parents to pour all their resources into their kids.

I think there are some deep cultural issues that need to be addressed aside from better education in schools to fix the economic imbalance. If African Americans think it's cooler to sell drugs and buy flashy things (this is a HUGE generalization, but using for example) than do well in school and build a career, then there is going to definitely be some mental conflict at play, which will inhibit their ability to perform in a competitive society.

It's about the perception of opportunity. In a lot of places there is none. No opportunities. This is where the angst and anger come from. There is no amount of working which can get you out so they give up. A lot of the systemic racism plays into this. Education is impossible because all the schools available are under funded and shitty (thanks no child left behind) and local opportunities are hard to come by. There is a inherent barrier as well with hiring. Most ethnic groups including asians face a barrier in less call backs for interviews and less likely to be hired based on the same qualifications. It's a tough thing to over come and in the big picture it means less reward for the same effort.

What drives a lot of this? I think it's culture. A lot of popular music promotes counter-productive behavior (drugs, drinking, frivolous spending, poor selection in men/women, etc). Why does this exist to a lesser extent in Asian communities? How can it be extrapolated into other cultures? Will Asians lose this culture as they assimilate more deeply? Why do Asians participate less in "glamorous" careers (acting, sports, politics)?

That's kind of ironic, as white people are the principle consumers of that cultures and Asians are big on it too. Asian parents are extremely risk averse; as they pour insane resources into the kids they also push them into safer careers. However asians are getting into acting, sports, and politics now too as the families can tolerate more risk. My parents poured 95% of their free income into their kids. I can pay for the same things with 20% of my free income. So if my little girl wants to be a golf player I won't be too concerned about indulging her.

Culture is a part of it but a shift needs a real justification. A lot of the hopelessness in black culture is because there are so few avenues to succeed and advance and tons of racist assholes in the way. A lot of these racists asshole aren't goose stepping nazi's or the KKK but just folks who figure they 'KNOW' what black people are like and they're 'just being honest'. So instead of being John Smith with a Bsc, it's the black applicant.

How were whites (and modern Western nations) able to become wealthy and powerful. Why didn't African nations do so as well (prior to colonization/slavery)? It's quite interesting to analyze the behaviors of humans and the results it has on their success. I think this analysis has the real answer. Not blaming rich people for existing problems.

The question is how do you optimize the system to stay on top versus; white = best. The reason for the rise of the European powers was because of lots of history which is difficult to say ethnicity X > ethnicity Y. Nothing persists forever. At some points India and China were the richest most powerful nations on earth. For a time some Mediterranean powers were. The factors that made them so are very complicated.

If you look at the fall of major powers, you'll find complacency was an issue.

[–]benigntugboat 7ポイント8ポイント  (2子コメント)

College costs are not a natural creation of supply and demand because they are heavily influenced by financial aid subsidies and federal student loan availability. And believing in yourself is not always a magic trick into making new life opportunities appear.

[–]chaosmosis 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

And believing in yourself is not always a magic trick into making new life opportunities appear.

But I've read about five billion bad psychology studies arguing otherwise!

[–]bobthedonkeylurker 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have this book I think you should read. Oprah says it works...

[–]tidux 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

If you do not believe your efforts will avail you any reward, why try? (There is a technical term for this phenomena but it slips me.)

"Eeyore."

[–]1point618 -1ポイント0ポイント  (6子コメント)

What is Effort Optimism if not an effect of classism and racism?

(edit: By "Effort Optimism" I mean both the fact that higher social classes are optimistic and lower social classes are pessimistic. Sub "Effort Pessimism" for what I wrote if you're really having a hard time understanding the question.)

[–]App1eEater 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

It's a learned attitude.

[–]1point618 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

Clearly. That doesn't make it not an effect of classism, racism, and other institutionalized prejudices.

I'd consider it by definition an effect of classism.

[–]App1eEater 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

an effect of classism.

More likely it's Self-handicapping behavior on both sides.

[–]Bahatur 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

If it were an effect of classism and racism, we would expect no one to be optimistic about their efforts in an egalitarian social group.

I think it would be more accurate and precise to say that classism and racism suppress Effort Optimism, along with their other ill effects.

[–]1point618 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

OK, why is Effort Pessimism not an effect of classism and racism then? If it were, we'd expect everyone in an egalitarian social group to be optimistic about their efforts (at least within that group), which is indeed what we see.

[–]Bahatur 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Ah - then I agree. But I think the value of decoupling the concept from classism and racism is that it becomes a worthwhile absolute metric and vector to attack the problem, rather than just indicating a problem because there is a difference.

[–]darwin2500 16ポイント17ポイント  (4子コメント)

This is a sociological problem, not an individual problem.

A concerned father should tell his daughter to watch her drink at parties and not walk alone at night to keep safe. But the governor of the state should increase police funding for prosecution and prevention of sexual assaults, not tell women to take responsibility for protecting themselves. The conversation changes at different levels of scale.

And there's a difference between a meritocracy that starts at birth and one that starts after college. If we're just taking a tiny subset of babies (those born to rich people) and hyper-training them to be as good as possible, more than we train anyone else, then yes, they'll be at the top of the meritocracy by the time they try to get a job in their 20s... but as a society we'll be wasting a huge amount of underdeveloped talent among all the other babies who we didn't put through the same training.

[–]Vaphell 5ポイント6ポイント  (3子コメント)

If we're just taking a tiny subset of babies (those born to rich people) and hyper-training them to be as good as possible

it's not "us", it's the parents pouring their own money one way or another, not to mention instilling certain values conductive to self-improvement and the drive to succeed. You cannot have equal outcomes without literally preventing rich people from spending extra money on their own progeny. Yes, funding issues are a problem but let's be honest, if a kid is taught to value knowledge and has a strong drive to acquire it, he/she will.

[–]darwin2500 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

'us' is society. The rich parents are paying for extra advantages, but the rest of us could decide to pay more for everyone else, so the difference is much less severe. Or demand an extreme overhaul of pubic education based on outcomes-driven research into teaching methods, or choose to buy from companies that have internship programs that actually train underprivileged youths with potential, or etc.

Society can't eliminate the advantage that rich parents give their kids, but we can certainly close that gap to a huge degree by puling everyone else up, and we could choose to do it through governmental, social, or economic means. Articles like this are a call to action for us to do exactly that, not a call to handicap those on top.

[–]steefen7 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

But, let's be brutally honest for a minute. Even if we throw money at the issue, it won't go away. At the end of the day if the kids and parents don't take school and society seriously then more money won't make a difference.

Everything you need to know in order to educate yourself and self improve is on the Internet for free, you just have to look and follow through. There's a bigger issue of mentality going on that keeps people down. Why is it that some immigrant groups do very well in America and others don't? Both lack resources and face discrimination yet some thrive and others fail. This I think captures the core of where the real problem is.

[–]Vaphell -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

"we" are already providing 12 years of school to everybody. What else can you do without micromanaging people's lives?

"call to action" doesn't mean anything, see Kony2012.
Tangible solutions please, ie how are you going to improve the whole pipeline from kindergarten, through 12 years of school without throwing humongous amounts of money you don't have at the problem?

[–]mb1z 22ポイント23ポイント  (4子コメント)

Wait... It's wrong to meet a suitable mate, and raise intelligent children and bestow on them knowledge to succeed, because it causes further success?

Thats not wrong. The trend toward concentration of wealth and power which results from that being the -only- route to success is whats wrong.

[–]intredasted 35ポイント36ポイント  (23子コメント)

Attitude/mentality is the deciding factor and can be learned, and is readily available for free across the internet.

Yeah, it's all about pulling yourself by your bootstraps. People still actually buy into this?

[–]steefen7 3ポイント4ポイント  (7子コメント)

Because success happens by magic and if you fail it's never your fault. Different people face very different obstacles, but at the end of the day you need to actually show up and do the work if you want to succeed.

The difference between a successful person and one of these billionaires is luck. But it's not luck if someone makes themselves middle class. That's hard work.

[–]recreational 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

"If it's true that people given every advantage in life can still fail, then it must also be true that people with no advantages can still succeed, and therefore those advantages don't really exist or need to be addressed in any way because life is already fair."

[–]NevadaCynic 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

A sample size of one remains a sample size of one. Doesn't matter if you are talking billionaire, millionaire, middle class, or dead broke. Sample size of one is still a sample size of one. You can't say luck impacts one but not the other.

[–]steefen7 -1ポイント0ポイント  (1子コメント)

I'm sorry which sample are we talking about? I'm saying that luck plays a huge role in deciding these sort of "once-in-a-liftetime" miracles. Why Snapchat became popular instead of some other competitor, etc. These are riches made in a short amount of time and are in large part down to fortune. I'm talking about how hard work over a long period of time can produce reliable results. Life is a distribution so there will always be people that fall in the tails and that sucks, but if you want to make it in this world, hard work throughout your entire life isn't a bad place to start.

Or if you're still stuck on sample sizes let me put this an even simpler way: hard work will never make your poorer than you started.

[–]NevadaCynic [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Absolutely. Almost any situation + hard work = better than without hard work. But the way you phrased it implies that hard work guarantees middle class. Or that someone can't luck into middle class, from either above or below, unearned instead of lucking into billionaire. Luck plays a huge role in deciding the not "once-in-a-lifetime" average guys' outcomes as well. A sample size of one is a sample size of one. Outlier or not.

Your sentiment is accurate on the whole, and on your clarification I agree mostly agree with what you are trying to say. It is just very loosely worded with many unintended implications. Speak in only absolutes and you will appear to be a partisan hack or a fool.

[–]TurbulentSocks 21ポイント22ポイント  (4子コメント)

It's not wrong to burn a lump of coal in winter to keep you warm, or fuel your car, or power your industry. But we've learned that if everyone does it, we've got a global warming problem.

Sometimes doing the right thing can have terrible consequences when everyone does it.

[–]rainbow3 18ポイント19ポイント  (8子コメント)

Opportunity is everywhere. Always has been, always will be. Telling yourself that it isn't (even if that were true), wouldn't help anyways.

The point being made is that the opportunity is not everywhere equally and therefore it is much easier to be rich from a rich parents than poor ones.

If you accept this is true but that "life is unfair, nothing can be done anyway".....I would disagree. There are many ways you can make opportunity more equal - education scholarships for poorer children; or state subsidy rather than parent subsidy to enable them to take up internships. In addition the tax system currently is not very progressive and allows middle class and wealthy more tax breaks than the poor.

[–]_chadwell_ -3ポイント-2ポイント  (7子コメント)

the tax system is currently not very progressive

At least federally, the top 1% in earners pay more than 10x as much as the bottom 50% in earners. So on average each person in the top 1% is paying 500x more than a person in the bottom 50%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivity_in_United_States_income_tax

[–]bleahdeebleah 11ポイント12ポイント  (2子コメント)

We don't just pay federal taxes, and not just the income tax (which is what you're referring to, I think).

Perhaps you ought to have a look at this, which includes everything.

[–]HarlanStone16 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

ITEP takes a few relatively liberal assumption, but their work is a well based view from the left.

A similar (though slightly dated) chart from a similar perspective can be seen in this Ezra Klein Article with a couple of very nice summary charts from Citizens for Tax Justice.

[–]rainbow3 6ポイント7ポイント  (1子コメント)

Not sure that is very meaningful though.

Imagine a world with 4 people. 1 earns $1m and the others earn $20K each. The rich guy pays 50% tax and is left with $500K. The others pay zero tax and are left with $20K.

Kind of progressive but the rich guy is still so rich that it has no real impact on the distribution of wealth.

[–]inspired2apathy 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

They also earn 10x, so no, actually, it's not particularly progressive considering deductions that go to high earners and the low capital gains tax rate, gaming the system with "non-profits" to hold intergenerational wealth.

[–]cocaine_enema -4ポイント-3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Your facts are not allowed in the circle jerk

[–]gc3 10ポイント11ポイント  (11子コメント)

The old elite in America at least felt guilty about their success. They knew they often managed smarter and harder working people than themselves.... The new elite often thinks they got to where they are because they are intrinsically better.

As far as 'well for yourself', if you income isn't over 500K per year, you're not in the elite.... note, 1% of New York State families earn that much.

[–]Spicy1 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

This. I know a person - a rich brat who's inherited a huge fortune that is convinced he is better than everyone due to superior breeding. One of his parents - the one that made the money fed him and the rest of the world lies about themselves and their ancestors and their achievements. A tabloid recently did an expose where they detailed that this person was basically a fraud and everything they ever said was a lie. The little guy was crushed for a while but I suppose he wiped his tears with 1000 dollar bills and moved on eventually.

[–]Nefandi 8ポイント9ポイント  (9子コメント)

It's wrong to meet a suitable mate, and raise intelligent children and bestow on them knowledge to succeed, because it causes further success?

Pulling up the ladder behind you is what's wrong. Not climbing. It's also wrong to create a bigger and bigger distance between the peak and the valley. We want to live among gradual hills and not craggy peaks which cannot even be seen from the ground.

Part of the problem is that the rich and the super-rich don't always realize that what they're doing amounts to pulling up of the ladder behind them, or that it creates a bigger and harder to cross gap between the haves and have nots. Some of them do realize it and still do it. Others are just self-indulgent and blissfully ignorant when it comes to noticing the long-term global effects of their actions and preferences. But we have to put a huge chunk of the blame on the poor people too, who often instead of being critical, want nothing more than to be those same blissfully ignorant rich doing exactly the same thing, given half a chance.

Opportunity is everywhere. Always has been, always will be.

Even in times of feudalism and aristocracy there was opportunity. If you sucked up just right you could have been knighted, granted land, or even granted a noble title.

Even if you live in a prison there is opportunity there to rise to the top of the prison population.

Point is, opportunity is everywhere, even in really shitty societies. Do you want to live in a shitty society?

[–]mariox19 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

[T]he super-rich don't always realize that what they're doing amounts to pulling up of the ladder behind them [...]

Could you elaborate, maybe with some examples? What is it that they're doing?

[–]Nefandi 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

The submitted article has some examples, but basically it's just rich people doing things rich people do. Here are some examples of what the rich kids can do that aren't mentioned in the article: if you're rich, you can buy ready-made homework. You can even pay for someone else to take a test instead of you, even in case where physical presence at a test site is mandatory.

But basically it's like this. Rich people collaborate together and create advantages for themselves that are harder and harder to penetrate. This is a natural process that has bad moral influence, but the people in the process don't necessarily knowingly intend to be evil. Example. You're a rich dude who owns a company. You negotiate with a store to get some shelf space. Good for you and maybe good for the store. This is possibly bad for the customers and bad for anyone else who now has to negotiate not just for empty shelf space, but has to convince the store owner to dump your product. Incumbents are always at an advantage. Now, if you're a big manufacturer with a big product line, you can negotiate with Target to get shelf space. If you make 20 soap bars a week in your basement, you probably cannot negotiate for shelf space at Target.

So rich people working together create environments that are naturally insulated from others. Sometimes the level of insulation is deliberate. Sometimes it's unconscious but still hurts.

Another example. The so-called "good" guy Warren Buffett (who imo is not a good guy at all, to say the least) constantly talks about the concept of a "moat." What do you think a moat is? If you don't know the answer to this, you should just look it up. Obviously a moat is good for the business who has it, and Warren Buffett, before he invests in your business, wants your business to have a moat. But moating businesses is bad for society in general for reasons I hope are obvious.

Basically such examples abound and you literally have to be evil not to be able to think of them on your own. You quite literally have to direct your mind not to think critically of how wealth impacts society in order not to see any negative traits. Anyone with even nominal intelligence who is not averse to critical thinking about wealth will instantly be able to think of many scenarios where wealth has deleterious effects on society.

Oh, and I didn't even talk about the interplay between wealth, government and law.

[–]mariox19 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Basically such examples abound and you literally have to be evil not to be able to think of them on your own. You quite literally have to direct your mind not to think critically of how wealth impacts society in order not to see any negative traits. Anyone with even nominal intelligence who is not averse to critical thinking about wealth will instantly be able to think of many scenarios where wealth has deleterious effects on society.

And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling Nefandi!

[–]BrewmasterSG 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Never before has it been easier to learn how to compound wealth

Compound

As in to take some and use it to make more. It requires some minimum amount to even attempt.

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[–]bushwakko 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Attitude/mentality is the deciding factor and can be learned

The problem seems to be that you need to change to adapt to a specific behavior to succeed in society. Any system that rewards the few and punishes the rest, is a society designed to change people to satisfy some criteria that isn't the happiness of most.

[–]sanderudam -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

Wait... It's wrong to meet a suitable mate, and raise intelligent children and bestow on them knowledge to succeed, because it causes further success?

No. But we need to help the poor to get on a more equal footing with the rich.

[–]JimSniper2 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's not suggesting anything besides a meritocracy, it's suggesting that the wealthy and powerful are giving their children an (ridiculously?) unfair advantage that perpetuates a cycle of success among the wealthy and powerful. Granted, there's nothing wrong with people doing the best for their kids but at the same time there is something wrong with the fact that these overwhelming advantages are being conferred only to a small portion of the population.

Also, opportunity really isn't everywhere lol. Kids in bad neighborhoods with bad schools with potentially uneducated/poor/etc. parents can't really be expected to perform like your average student. Admittedly that isn't an excuse to not try, but still you'd have to be a pretty extraordinary person to just shrug all that off and say "oh well gotta keep goin."

Your success story built off of hard work and personal effort is nice, but it's hardly representative of the overall reality.

[–]recreational 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Opportunity is everywhere. Always has been, always will be. Telling yourself that it isn't (even if that were true), wouldn't help anyways.

This is only even vaguely true if we include revolutionary activity in past senses of "opportunity" for historically oppressed classes; but then we have to introduce it as an option in the meaning of "success" opportunities for this generation, which is probably not what you mean to do.

[–]OrkBegork[🍰] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Wait... It's wrong to meet a suitable mate, and raise intelligent children and bestow on them knowledge to succeed, because it causes further success?

You're completely missing the point. Nobody is saying there's anything wrong with raising your children well, or whatever bizarre misinterpretation you've got here. The problem isn't so much that this system allows certain people to thrive, but that it keeps far more people stuck in poverty.

Jokes aside, there is definitely a problem with donations creating preferences, but let's be honest, the college system isn't the only way to success, far from it.

Having a degree is a massive advantage, and having a degree from a more notable institution is even better. The disparity in wealth comes from far more than just education. Social connections, familiarity with the operations of the business world, and having capital to fall back on, or help build opportunities make a massive difference. Most people are not entrepreneurs, and there are a huge number of fields that absolutely require a good deal of education.

Attitude/mentality is the deciding factor and can be learned, and is readily available for free across the internet.

Attitude/mentality is available for free on the internet? Or are you claiming that the knowledge provided by post-secondary education is available for free? Do you want a doctor who learned from Wikipedia? Give me a fucking break. Education, and the institutions around it have a much more important purpose than simply being the means to make you richer.

That said, attitude/mentality are not the deciding factor. That is absolute bullshit. Why do poor kids who succeed in school statistically do worse in life than rich kids who do poorly in school? ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/18/poor-kids-who-do-everything-right-dont-do-better-than-rich-kids-who-do-everything-wrong/ )

Equal opportunity and equal outcome are not the same. Opportunity is everywhere. Always has been, always will be

Again, this is absolute bullshit. Yes, opportunities exist. Nobody is claiming that it is totally impossibly to go from poor to rich... but the idea that it's all based on how you're just full of moxie has no basis in reality. People tend to want to believe that all of their success is based on what great workers they are, and hate having to admit that all kinds of factors go into success, including your ability to fit into the culture of your chosen field, connections, and financial stability and independence.

Telling yourself that it isn't (even if that were true), wouldn't help anyways.

That's right folks, the best thing to do is to completely ignore the disparity of wealth and opportunity in our society. The last thing you'd want to do is inadvertently start caring about things beyond personally accumulating wealth.

[–]sangjmoon 12ポイント13ポイント  (9子コメント)

South Korea, after the Korean War, was totally devastated. People were struggling to make enough food to survive, but one thing the parents put above almost everything else was the education of their children. Even if all they could do was build something a little better than a shack for a schoolhouse and pay any teacher they could find whatever they could grow on their farms, they did it.

The point is that being rich and powerful helps, but having parents who put their children's education as a priority independent of what anybody else, including the government, says or does is far more important.

[–]darwin2500 6ポイント7ポイント  (8子コメント)

That's really easy to say if your kids go to a good school already and you don't have to do anything yourself... In the US, kids aren't allowed to learn in shacks and the random teacher a group of poor people can afford to teach in their shack isn't going to prepare their kids to manage a hedge fund.

[–]sangjmoon 8ポイント9ポイント  (6子コメント)

However, too many parents treat school as just day care and don't even care how well their children are doing in school. That isn't an issue with how much money they have or don't have.

[–]dominosci 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

I don't believe in punishing kids because they have bad parents. If your parents suck we should still give you all the help you need to excel.

[–]heavenlytoaster 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

If your parents suck what they would need to excel is to be removed from them, which is probably not going g to happen.

[–]darwin2500 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

That's an easy way to dismiss a population as not worthy of your help or concern, and I'm sure we can all find anecdotal examples to back it up. But I don't believe that this view actually represents very many parents, and I don't believe it represents a significantly larger proportion of poor parents than it does of rich parents. I don't think it's a large enough portion of the sample to significantly affect our general conversation about how to address the issues in the article.

If you have statistical evidence to prove me wrong on any of those points, I will certainly change my position. But the anecdotes and 'common knowledge' on this topic don't impress me.

[–]sangjmoon 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

http://www.adi.org/journal/ss03/Gonzalez-DeHass%20&%20Willems.pdf

The gist of it is that lack of parental involvement is the biggest problem facing public schools.

[–]SD99FRC [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

So, uh, his anecdotes don't impress your anecdotes?

Seems like a constructive conversation.

[–]steefen7 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

And managing a hedge fund isn't the only way to success. Why is everyone so fixated on finance? The point is that if you're poor, managing a home Depot let alone a hedge fund would mean a huge jump in your standing and what you'd be able to provide for your kids.

People want to propel the poor immediately into the upper middle class but we've seen what happens when people with no money skills get a ton of money (the lottery). Too many go and blow it. It takes generations to build the skills necessary to maintain a good standard of living and that means some people have to make sacrifices now for the success of their kids.

[–]alpha_as_f-ck 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Charles Murray wrote extensively about this in his book Coming Apart) - which is an interested read based on the demographic and cultural shifts in America since the 1960s.

[–]mrhymer 2ポイント3ポイント  (5子コメント)

How is it a problem? How does someone else being rich do any kind of harm to you?

[–]DrunkHacker [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Happiness is more correlated to relative wealth than absolute.

IOW, you'll be happier making $100k/year if all your friends make $50k rather than $150k; even though you're unchanged.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3315638/Relative-wealth-makes-you-happier.html

[–]solidsnack9000 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

Resources you don't have or can't earn are a problem for you.

[–]working_shibe [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

I see some people literally pining for bygone eras where they would be poorer than today but the rich would be not as much richer than them. It's crazy.

[–]CommodoreKrusty 3ポイント4ポイント  (4子コメント)

It's the Matthew Effect. It's human nature and it'll be a very difficult thing to change.

[–]abudabu[S] -1ポイント0ポイント  (3子コメント)

Redistributive programs, no?

[–]chaosmosis 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

I've seen a lot of them that fail to have any lasting impact. When you look at people who win the lottery, etc, their children strongly tend to return to the "original" income bracket that they were in. I will support massive redistributive programs once I see a convincing meta analysis showing that these have a significant effect lasting more than one generation (in the US; there are some interesting studies about donating money abroad to foreign poor people but those are not quite relevant here).

[–]CommodoreKrusty -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's difficult to be impartial. The Matthew Effect will undoubtedly play some roll in deciding how things are to be redistributed.

[–]DrunkHacker [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

So long as there's inequality, wealthier parents will work to ensure their children have a relative advantage. e.g. As pre-K has become standard, wealthy parents are enrolling their children in "twos programs" (this might just be a NYC thing). As trigonometry becomes standard, they'll learn calculus. As college becomes standard, more children of wealthy parents go to grad school.

There's no way to catch up without preventing parents from supporting their children, which I don't think is a road we should go down.

[–]zparks 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

Perhaps we need additional standards for measuring "success." For example, the article assumes that measures like SAT scores are an indicator of success, but what about measures for happiness, indications of compassion or scores that reflect the subjects propensity for greed or other socio-pathological patterns. I want to raise my son to be successful in his profession because I want him to be wealthy enough to live comfortably, but I also want him to be happy and to care for neighbors and humanity.

[–]darwin2500 -1ポイント0ポイント  (1子コメント)

So basically, 'more money more problems', and the poor folks should be happy with the simple, unencumbered life they get to lead?

Yeah, no.

[–]nbnb3131 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

So long as there are rich parents there will always be advantaged kids. It's just an aspect of free society that I believe will always exist. Equal opportunity can only go so far, the only way to truly achieve perfectly equal opportunity would be to have a mandatory system of homogeneous public schooling and very significant wealth redistribution - essentially we'd be looking at a form of communism/socialism or whatever.

The good news is that in our free society if you're exceptionally hardworking or smart or lucky you can become one of those rich parents and your kids can be advantaged. And more importantly, at the same time if those advantaged kids don't make the most of what they are given they can easily be knocked off their perch (albeit usually only down a couple rungs, there aren't many riches to rags stories).

Freedom doesn't mean utopia, freedom means we'll see a normal distribution of success across a society... the best we can do is try to skew things a little.

[–]seridos 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

What you described in education Isint communism, it's what we do in Canada. It's frankly totally backwards to me NOT to spend the same amount per child, no matter what school it is or what locality it is.

[–]LilacRuby 1ポイント2ポイント  (6子コメント)

Wasn't there a study posted a few days ago that showed smart poor kids do worse than rich dumbfuck kids.

[–]qumqam 12ポイント13ポイント  (2子コメント)

smart poor kids do worse than rich

You're thinking of this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/2josjx/poor_kids_who_do_everything_right_dont_do_better/

and it showed the opposite. That college educated bottom quintile kids rise out of their quintile.

As for the article posted here, I personally don't have a problem with the top quintile spending on education and working to make good citizens who also earn in the top quintile. My issue would be if they make lousy citizens who still stay in the top quintile, either through nepotism or inheritance.

[–]jctruman 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

and it showed the opposite. That college educated bottom quintile kids rise out of their quintile.

Do bottom quintile students do as well as top quintile students assuming similar academic performance? That's the point of the article.

[–]Iron-Fist 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

That is exactly what that article shows, that the same number of lousy citizens who start off rich stay rich the easy way as great citizens who start poor and claw their way to the top. The worst of the rich do about as well as the best of the poor is the take away point of that particular data.

[–]revelatorchurch 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I have the perfect anecdote to tell you why not. I know a guy who is a rich dumbfuck kid. Like, his dad has 33 million in a trust fund for his ass, and has paid out quite a bit, but the kid is too fucking dumb to live.

So, this guy gets his college level education paid for after being a fuck-up in school, and goes to Penn State. Gets absolutely fucked by the workload and drops out 3 times, but each time, goes back to daddy and gives him a different reason that it wasn't his fault that he failed, and gets more cash to work with to do it again.

He gets a vehicle, a Mustang, at age 16, and has totaled it (and its replacement Mustangs) 4 times by age 20.

He does not go to school anymore, but instead got himself a job at an entertainment facility. An Airsoft Arena. So... yeah. There you go.

Now I don't have to tell you why he has a huge head-start on smart poor kids. A car, completely your own, and with the cash to buy gas for it and a daddy to cover maintenance, which allows you to no longer be ruled so much by local geography. What, no good jobs for a student in the area? Fuck it, just drive a few miles. Sorry poor kids, no car, no stable income except for what you can walk or bus to.

Not to mention getting your tuition paid. Like, damn. Three times, and dropped out every time. I could have gone to school on the money he wasted. I'm too fucking poor for that shit, though.

So, yeah, I'm a little bit salty, but the guy molested my sister and got away with it.

[–]Godd2 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

So, yeah, I'm a little bit salty, but the guy molested my sister and got away with it.

Good thing you were on the jury so you could judge the facts reasonably and rationally.

[–]hippiechan 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

As much as people (myself included) dislike his conclusions and "solutions" to the problem, this is part of the point that Piketty was making in Capital. Inheritance of wealth helps fortunes grow between generations, and given the fact that wealthy children are better able to accumulate more wealth independent of their parents fortunes, this effect is likely only accelarated.

I'm not saying that we should implement inheritance taxes or have a global wealth tax or anything of the sort, but at the very least, we should recognize that it's a problem when the meritocracy's wealth grows disproportionately more than the rest of society.

[–]SammyD1st 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Another great article on this topic:

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/09/fall-meritocracy/

Also, anything by Gregory Clark.

[–]California_Viking 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

The issues, the majority of them, are created by the government.

High education costs due to lack of money going to schools. Inner city schools ignored. Private schools and universities having to jump through hoops while standards are not upheld for public schools. Growing costs and no accountability.

Then slow adaptation of education, not pushing STEM to having little in terms of SKILL training.

Then you have corporate welfare and barriers created by the government.

I could go on and on the rich do get richer and it's because the system in place allows them to do that.

[–]FactimusMaximus 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

"Who is your daddy and what does he do?"

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[–]jctruman 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

I love the genetic determinism ITT. So disgusting.

[–]heavenlytoaster 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

In that thread or this one... I guess both.

[–]almond_butt -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

editorialized title? it's a problem for whom? not everyone

[–]FailosoRaptor -1ポイント0ポイント  (2子コメント)

I am all for policies that help level out the playing field for children. Yeah we should have finance classes in basic education and we should actively try create an environment where school quality is more equal.

However a lot of this disparity is on the parents themselves. You can rephrase this title and have it say that responsible families have responsible children.

Parents who take push education/fiscal responsibility on their children will have children who are educated/fiscally responsible. And generally if these parents believe in these values then they are also going to be well off.

[–]jctruman 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Yet you hear stories where good students from the bottom quintile do about as well as dropouts from the top. So it clearly isn't all merit.

[–]DrunkHacker [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

"A lot of the disparity", not that it explains every single case.

[–]TurtlesAllTheW4yDown -5ポイント-4ポイント  (2子コメント)

Why is inequality a bad thing?

Or, why is equality a good thing?

It seems that there could be two possible answers to these questions: 1) equality is a good in and of itself or 2) equality is a means to some end. If 1, then the question of 'why is equality good' is unnecessary, because it is being assumed as a first principal. But if two, then what is equality for?

One possible answer to this is that equality is the best way to ensure that the most possible people are excellent. If wealth is not zero-sum, then wealth and power seeming to be hereditary is a good thing. It is good that lots of people have a high chance of making money, so long as their high chance is not lowering the chances of others. So this is not necessarily a problem.

Why do you guys think that equality is a good thing? 1 or 2? And if 2, then why?

[–]darwin2500 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Worth noting the Fallacy of the Grey here... you can say that we have too much inequality right now without saying that only 100% strict equality among all persons forever is acceptable. Maybe inequality that looks like a bell curve is fine, but a Burr distribution is not. Etc.

That said: 2, with an understanding that marginal utility of dollars to an individual, as measured by influence on quality of life, decreases with number of dollars available. Giving $10 to a rich person increases their quality of life less than giving $10 to a poor person. Therefore, more equality leads to greater overall quality of life, averaged across all persons.

[–]Brian_Official 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Equality of opportunity != equality of outcome