My grandfather went to work in the mines when he was 14. He owned his own mine by the time he was 40. He had a 3rd grade education. My dad owned 1/2 the co. by 1957 and the rest in ‘62. My family has produced several engineers, a lawyer(black sheep), school teachers, a cpa, several upper level executives in fortune 500 cos., and several multimillionaires, along with a colonel in the army. Big family, 13 children and adopted 2 others. All this from a hillbilly whose dad died when he was 8 and he along with his mother provided for his 6 siblings until they got old enough provide for themselves then he left to seek his fortune at age 14. When grandad died he had a pretty good chunk of change a farm and 2 small businesses he started after retirement. Don’t know where you are from but here it is still possible. Maybe you believe in one of the ism’s that don’t allow you to dream of what might be possible.
With regard to your post 15, you obviously come from a family of people with very high IQs combined with more-than-average desire to improve themselves. This is not the norm, as you surely know.
I totally agree that those who wish to succeed and have the brain-power can still be huge successes in this country...for a while.
Our problem is that we are more and more being afflicted by the non-stop over-production of low IQ people who find that their stupidity is not an impediment to being taken care of in this country, i.e., the welfare recipients. Under liberal policies that continue to crank up the welfare machine, in time they will overwhelm the producers. And that’s the scary part.