[stig]

We are promised equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. I read somewhere a long time ago that if you pooled all the money in the world and gave everyone his fair portion of it, the same people would eventually wind up being rich, and the same being poor. With minor exceptions (like inheritance), I agree. Some people know how to succeed and others don't.

This is a myth. If you took the richest 100 people burned their address book and forced them to develop all new contacts. Gave them each $200,000 (the price of a college education) and made them start over. I would venture to say that many wouldn't make it back to the upper ranks of wealth. They would do ok. But let's face it the ideas that rocket you into the super wealthy category don't happen all that often.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

I disagree. People who become wealthy tend to understand a few things about money that the rest of us miss.

I bet if you took the richest 100 people, took away all their possessions and gave them $10,000 cash, 90 of them would be millionaires within a decade.

[Minuteman23]

I don't agree. You act as though it's a single idea that causes wealth. In most cases I think It's a mind set and a work ethic. I think the "myth", although too specific, would prove true in most cases.