America's rags-to-riches dream an illusion

Reuters (via Yahoo) ^ | April 26, 2006 | Alister Bull

[higgmeister]

The likelihood that a child born into a poor family will make it into the top five percent is just one percent,

All Bull from Al Bull!

The top five percent in other nations is the poverty level in the US.

This Commie sock puppet can bite my kumquats.

Being poor in Detroit isn't anything close to being poor in Eritrea.

[BnBlFlag]

I have known many men from modest to poor circumstances who have gotten "rich" due to a lifetime of hard work and shrewd dealings. The writer is F.O.S.

[SuziQ]

"In other words, the chances of getting rich are about 20 times higher if you are born rich than if you are born in a low-income family," he told an audience at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank sponsoring the work.

Yeah, so? Doesn't mean a child born to a low income family won't SOMEDAY be rich. It just means it's more difficult. Life is tough; get over it.

[RipSawyer]

Actually the American dream was never about amassing great wealth. It's about earning an honest living, buying a home and raising a family while being left alone.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Two out of three ain't bad but I think you can forget about that last one. Being left alone is the impossible dream these days.

[Intolerant in NJ]

"In other words, the chances of getting rich are about 20 times higher if you are born rich than if you are born in a low-income family,"...if you're "born rich" you don't have to "get" rich, you already are - a more interesting question would be why do so many people born rich not end up that way - the death tax is one answer......

[RobbyS]

Nonsense. Ask any German who is familiar with both countries how hard it is to start a company in Germany as compared with starting one in the United States. Besides, the Germans now have to deal with an immigrant class that does not know how to create wealth at all, and they are becoming more numerous every year.

[Ichneumon]

Wow! I could spend all day listing the logical and statistical fallacies in this piece of crap.

[x]

Could be a "long wave" theory, or more likely a reference to 19th century monetary deflation. Wikipedia's article on deflation has a reference to "The Great Sag of 1873-96." Apparently the Alaska gold discoveries helped end it. Deflation looks to be a voguish topic now: the new Fed chief Bernanke has written about deflation, and the Japanese are very interested in it because of their recent experience.

One panic or slump followed twenty years later by another looks to be average -- even above average. I guess the question is whether the deflation was something catastrophic, or whether it was something moderate and manageable, like inflation today. You might want to look into the question more deeply, but it looks clear enough that deflation didn't preclude real economic growth or rising living standards in the late 19th century. But of course, the deflation did hurt debtors -- above all farmers -- just as hyperinflation has hurt creditors.

What makes societies like the US different from those like Denmark is ethnic diversity. A large part of the lowest quintile here is composed of recent immigrants -- even illegals. Their children will have better lives than their parents, but it's less likely in a heterogeneous society that many of them could jump into the top quintile in a generation than in a homogeneous society -- and the Scandinavian have long been very homogeneous. There's a little more inertia than might exist in a less diverse society. Great mobility does happen here though.

[Chong]

Bull shitsalot.

[kittymyrib]

Unless you're a 7'4" center, a foul-mouthed rapper with more guns than the other rappers, or a crooked politician ...then upward mobility is pretty well assured.

[US_MilitaryRules]

UUHHHH the Dutch are from Holland the last time I check with my Dutch wife and inlaws. lol

No more geography classes in publik skools for you!

[willyboyishere]

BUMP

[willyboyishere]

Once again, it is hard to believe how idiotic this piece is, and how clear it is that it is agenda-drivwen, rather than truth-seeking.

[nicollo]

The obsession of the Left with "income disparity" and "income gaps" leads to cognitive constipation as this article so eloquently expresses. The assumption is that if there is a larger disparity between the highest and the lowest income then the lowest income must be worth less. This article extrapolates from there to the stupid notion that these supposed disparities are necessarily generational.

Somewhere, either on a FR post or in the news, I saw that most Americans would rather make $90,000 if the median income was $70,000 than $100,000 if the median income was $130,000. It's a stupid and, I guess, innate part of human jealousy that leads to such inanity.

This article is exemplary of that type of thinking.

[Revolting cat!]

Here's another take:

The key to making this kind of system work, as any casino 
owner or producer of American Idol knows, is the Lotto 
principle: the rare and quite arbitrary, but sensational, 
payoff to some schmo who is duly lifted into the clouds of 
pop-cult divinity as a sign to the masses. Such elevations 
become legendary, word of mouth spreads, the faithful's 
faith is renewed, and quarters keep clinking into the slot 
machines. For it is a well-known fact that sooner or later 
everyone wins the lottery, becomes famous on television, 
and gets to sleep with Brad Pitt and/or J-Lo — or, if not 
everyone, at least me, me, me. It is merely a matter of 
time and persistence; my ship is just over the horizon, 
like that aircraft carrier Bush landed on.  More

[Revolting cat!]

STUDY:

Any news item or story in any way critical of the United States or citing a source which places the country not at the top in any statistical category is 95% guaranteed to provoke knee-jerk, cliche ridden, lame reactions on freerepublic.com.

[nicollo]

knee-jerk, cliche ridden, lame reactions on freerepublic.com

How about some truth, then. Have you anything to refute what has been on this thread? Do you support the thesis of this article and the report on which it was based? Do you believe that there is greater economic mobility in Denmark than in the U.S., or do you believe the Freepers that Denmark's lack of economic diversity is sickly compared to the great heights of American potential? Would you compare valleys to hills or to mountains?

Freepers are not "knee jerk" America-firsters. If anything, they are "knee jerk" anti-America haters, but I wouldn't even characterize them as such. They stand up for their nation, for their ideals, and for their first principles, and they loathe the leftist fools who abandon those principles at the slightest scent of socialist perfume.

Go ahead: say something substantive. Otherwise, you've merely reacted, and added nothing.

[willyboyishere]

"cognitive constipation"---I like that phrase. I guess that's what happens sometimes when one ingests too much "cognitive dissonance"---or too little.....or something. But anyway, good points all 'round!

[nicollo]

too much "cognitive dissonance"---or too little.....or something

Very funny! Over some discussion the other night, a friend spilled out, "I'm sick of the counter-intuitive. Why can't things just be as they appear?"

Just ran across a column in March's Atlantic Monthly, by Clive Crook, Capitalism: The Movie (subsription required for full article) in which the author laments that many people who believe in individual freedoms (aka, liberals like himself) haven't a clue about economic freedoms. While Crook misreads, indeed rather misleads about, what he calls "right-of-center," his point is important: most Americans, and led by popular culture, especially the movies, are economic retards. He gives the example of the perestroika-era Soviet official who visited a vegetable market in London and asked how they set prices. When told the market set its prices he laughed, saying he knew that was the official line, but really, who set the prices?

I agree, all too many Americans couldn't figure that out, either. Crook also points out that university economics classes have become too quantitative, too esoteric and have distanced the discipline from the public mind. Unfortunately, Crook also believes that taxes should remain high, that health-care should be socialized, and that government market regulations are good. Talk about cognitive dissonance!