Entitlement vs Self-Attribution Fallacy
 

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves ? that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive ? are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren?t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/th...ution-fallacy/

No true advocate of a free market would ever claim that hard work leads to wealth. If you spend an entire day digging a hole in the ground, will that make your wealthy? No, but you sure will have worked hard.

Creation of wealth is a result of people consuming less than they produce. The difference is what we call capital or capital goods. This capital allows them to spend time on long(er) term projects (like building a fishing boat instead of using a simple fishing rod).

By focusing their energy on what they can do best and trading with others who also focus on what they do best, individuals can maximize their income and reduce opportunity costs.

Trading with others implies that individuals produce products or deliver services other individuals want and are willing to give something in exchange for. The better an individual can predict what others in society will want, the more profit he can make and the less of his time and capital he will waste.

I'd agree, because a large percentage of those 1% don't actually create anything. They just move money around and work the system.

So there are smart motherfuckers in here as well. Good for my blood pressure.

If you clowns spent less time worrying about your betters and more time working, uh............well you still wouldn't succeed but at least you'd be looking less silly.
Trust me, the successful spend no time wondering why you failed

He is ignoring relativity. Some rise and some fall in a given population and it is not all based on luck.

Very little is based in luck

All this talk lately is just bullshit.

Reality is...since I was a kid in school I could see with my own two eyes that there are winners and losers in life. It's just the way it is (at least in the United States).

Some people are just downright lazy and/or dumb.

Worker bees.

And some people have excelled all their lives.
And nothing breeds success like success does. The more you "win" the more you are able to win in the future. And the reverse is also true.

Some people are just downright focused on working and moving ahead. They work 24 hours a day 7 days a week. And then the majority (the 99% if you will) are all working for the weekend and can't wait for the end of the workday on Monday through Friday and pretty much fuck off at work most of the day.

Human nature I suppose. There are "leaders" and there are "followers" and that's just the way it is.

Edit: shit on my phone. Quoted wrong post? Supposed to be OP. Sorry Bob.

The father (now deceased) and son I know who started a construction company in their garage in the 70s and now have 10k employees and $2 billion a year in revenue would disagree.

They were just two hardworking guys who started small and focused on getting large.

Took 35 years but it's still a private company and the family still controls 60%.

Just two blue collar guys (now white) that did what they had to do.

My dad went from dirt poor to private jet rich.

Working really hard at short term goals and spending dumb after skipping school will of course just pay your bills, not make you rich.

On the other hand, virtually everyone who is rich worked their ass off to get there. My dad grew up in a hut with a dirt floor. They looked forward to Sundays, when they'd have meat with dinner. Normally, the meat was something they shot or trapped. Seriously dirt poor. He worked 50 hours a week to pay for going to school full time. One job he had was janitor - scrubbing toilets to pay to learn math. Twenty-five years later, he took me and the rest of the family with him on the corporate jet. He WORKED his way to being a VP of a major company. Part of that hard work was in school.

That's how 99% of rich people get rich - by not only working their ass off at the job, but by working just as heard to learn more so they can move up. I've worked jobs basically for free if I could learn from them.

About one person out of a million luck out after first working real hard and become major stars of movies or sports. These very few appear mega-rich beyond the work they put in. Considering on average they'll spend fifteen years preparing for stardom that lasts three years, it's not as out of whack as it seems, but big stars are very, very rare. They often feel, rightly, that they are rich (for a little while) partly due to luck.

Big stars or other "lucky rich" are extremely rare, though. Just a few hundred people. Rich normally means working for a good education while working more to pay tuition and books, then working more to put that education to use, working harder than the other guy who also wants the promotion.

Pearls before swine.

:2 cents:

Not to knock your story, but any idea how many people get rich like this versus the amount of people that are simply born into wealth?

Crusoe economics.

their success can probably be traced back to get a number of key jobs that really moved them forward. without those specific jobs they might still be a father and son construction company. in my opinion life in general works like this. you are only one step away from success or total failure at any given time. even a small what seems like meaningless decision could make or break it down the road but you can't see it at the time.

and like robbie says, there are worker bees who generally just accept the position in which they were born into. ever hear people say, we aren't 'those' kind of people (ie rich). these people just accept that a decent paying job is the most they'll achieve because its the most their parents and grandparents ever achieved. others, like myself and many here refuse to accept that and no matter if we succeed or fail, we continue to try. not everyone who works hard towards a goal will succeed, no matter how many times they try and some will succeed on the first go, some on the 50th and some will just give up but its not cut and dry as to, if you have drive you will succeed. its not as simple as that.

Sales of 1% milk have dropped by a third since the Occupy movement started. Food for thought.

this year will be more successful than any.

looking forward to this year very much. new projects, new clients, new future!

Human life is not some sort of race or game in which each person should start from an identical mark. It is an attempt by each man to be as happy as possible. And each person could not begin from the same point, for the world has not just come into being; it is diverse and infinitely varied in its parts. The mere fact that one individual is necessarily born in a different place from someone else immediately insures that his inherited opportunity cannot be the same as his neighbor's. The drive for equality of opportunity would also require the abolition of the family since different parents have unequal abilities; it would require the communal rearing of children. The State would have to nationalize all babies and raise them in State nurseries under 'equal' conditions. But even here conditions cannot be the same, because different State officials will themselves have different abilities and personalities. And equality can never be achieved because of necessary differences of location.
-Murray N. Rothbard

Congrats toe you fine sire.

:winkwink:

the number of people born into wealth is so tiny as to not be a valid number for a discussion like this.
If you don't like the position your mom bore you into, blame her, not your betters.

If you don't like what you achieved in life, blame yourself, not your betters.

they are talking about the real elites there, not the people who pretend to be ones on this board. if you are posting here you are not part of the 0.0001% or related, even distantly.

Free-market principles pre-suppose that the government should not even attempt to level the playing field. His logic is that because there can NEVER truly be a level playing field that we should make no attempt to even try? What a piece of shit that guy is.

:1orglaugh

It's impossible to "level the playing field" simply because we are all individuals. We are all different. And we all grow up in different environments. We all grow up amongst people who are individuals themselves (and thus all different). Every individual has his own strengths and weaknesses, goals, hopes, dreams, fears, preferences, abilities etc.

Some see opportunities where others don't. Some like to eat hamburgers, others prefer steak. Some like expensive jewelry, others prefer shells from the beach. Some like working outdoors, other hate the rain/wind/cold. Some like to spend a lot of time with their families, others prefer to focus on other things. Some like to travel and explore the world, others prefer to stay at home.

The whole egalitarian notion of equality and leveling the playing field either ignores some of the basic facts of life or is an excuse used by envious people to commit heinous acts of aggression.

Or as Rothbard put it:

The diversity of mankind is a basic postulate of our knowledge of human beings. But if mankind is diverse and individuated, then how can anyone propose equality as an ideal? Every year, scholars hold Conferences on Equality and call for greater equality, and no one challenges the basic tenet. But what justification can equality find in the nature of man? If each individual is unique, how else can he be made 'equal' to others than by destroying most of what is human in him and reducing human society to the mindless uniformity of the ant heap?
-Murray N. Rothbard

Good man ! Baby steps... Now you have done your phone, work towards doing it in your bed :thumbsup



:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

I don't recall the exact numbers I read, but something like 95% of millionaires made less than $100,00 and saved. 90% or so are first generation millionaires.

In my opinion, using English will help you get ahead. You may think it doesn't matter if you write sentences or not. Yet, the people who get rich are people who take care to do it right - to write actual sentences . If you're not rich, try doing what they do.

We never no the long term effects of one specific instance of a specific decision. With hundreds of small decisions made every day, that's not what matters, though. PRINCIPLES matter. For example, we don't know WHEN we'll have a car accident. However, we know that always wearing a seatbelt and driving safely is smart. The construction guys who went on to own a successful construction company probably didn't know which people would turn out to be important customers, but they knew that by treating all people fairly would be good for their business in the long run.

I looked it up. 80% are first generation millionaires:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_110333.html

Of the other 20%, most LEARNED good habits from their parents, doing what their parents did, and earned their own wealth.
Just as some kids learn from their parents that spending $25 / week on lottery tickets is normal, others learn that saving $25 starting from their very first pay check is normal.

Very, very few, hundreds of people in the US, inheirit a bunch of wealth and never work.

Some, like myself, are "born into wealth" in that I was born into a family that taught me good habits and such.
Still, I decided I'd rather smoke pot and quit school. I ended up living in the woods, under a tarp. I had a dirt floor
just like my dad did when he was growing up. That was the result of my choices, of course, and the (lack of) effort I put in.

Later, I worked 60 hours a week while going to college. Then I worked 65 hours a week building a business.
At work, I'm now called "sir". That's also due to my decisions and the effort I put in.

and that is incorrect how? sorry if you are a roofer you are not part of the power elite.

Open up a history book.

1. See how many of the great fortunes in this country were made.
2. See how those people treated their employees.
3. How they were looked on by their contemporaries.

Here are a few to wet your appetite sport.

1. Manwin
2. Rockefeller (Standard Oil)
3. Bill Gates (Microsoft)
4. Steve Jobs (Apple)
5. Bush Family
6. Kennedy Clan

Let's see in regards to these "principals".... doing business with the Nazi's, rum runners, anti competitive practices, theft/borrowing, etc. and so on.

Yep. Looks like you're on to something champ.

:2 cents:

being born into wealth isn't anything new... hating on them doesn't get you anywhere.

We are living in a time and in a place where the small guy can become the guy with wealth and success. It wasn't long ago where this was nearly impossible, and in many areas of the world it is still like this.

Hard work has never been enough... it takes the right dream, persistence and the drive to want more.

:1orglaugh

Indeed people like Abraham Lincoln, for example, may have been more rare.

Here's the biggest thing in this whole topic:

Both sides are correct.
If you decide that "they" are your problem, you are fucked, because because you can't do anything about them. Your situation can never improve if they are to blame.

If you decide that your actions matter, only then do you have a chance. If you resign yourself to being a failure because that's your fate, your right. If you decide your attitude and your hard work can get you ahead, you will also be right.

Wealth building topics are inspirational, especially if you have had small advancements towards your goals.
That means you can have larger ones. Good luck!!!

skim, 1 or 2% milk are all absolutely disgusting. Fat is completely removed then reinjected in proper proportions for those types.

Trust fund kids have afforded me way more social opportunities than just about anyone else. <3 them.

Open up a dictionary and learn English, then we can talk. Once you know the difference between principals and principles, between wet and whet, maybe we can have an intelligent conversation. Better though if first you stop getting your "facts" from Coast to Coast AM.

If 12clicks was born a poor kid in Africa he'd still have grown up to be a moderately wealthy, white has been in America. :)

Seriously folks, a shit ton of success is based on pure fucking luck. What family were you born into, what opportunities did you have, who did you meet along the way that loaned you some knowledge, etc. Hard work and street smarts can do a lot but neither guarantee you will make great money. Too many factors, way too many.

If you want to see the idiotic attitudes here in fast forward go keep an eye on hot shot poker players. They win for 6 months or a year and think they are so much smarter than everyone then those darn statistics kick in and you never see them win shit again. With millions of people fighting to be successful you will have some that can't lose on pure luck, some that are really brilliant, some that work hard and it works and most that get where they are from a combination of the three.

Even what Robbie says, true to an extent. But his millionaire ass is nobody to the billionaires that also think they are thousands of times smarter than everyone else. To them he is as poor and stupid as the guy working at McDonalds.

Standard deviation, look it up.

You forgot Henry Ford who, at the time, paid the highest salaries in the country (world?). AFAIK his employees didn't exactly complain. It's all about a free market and competition.

Standard deviation it is! :thumbsup