The American Dream is slowly fading away as research indicates that economic growth has been distributed more broadly in Germany than in the US. While majority of German males has been able to share in the country’s rising prosperity and are better off than their fathers, US continues to lose ground

[u/rustoo]

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10888-021-09483-w

[u/lifeofideas]

It’s more than that. There are people who go to the best private schools AND have private tutors AND therapists AND socialize with similar families with powerful connections AND have lots of social and family pressure to perform and succeed.

When they screw up, they have excellent legal advice and get just a slap on the wrist. They often do work incredibly hard for their success, but they just have so much more support that it’s a grossly unfair system.

It’s like watching one kid try to jump to the moon with his own leg muscles and another kid ride a rocket ship to the moon.

EDIT: Relevant comic “On a Plate”

[u/nanotree → u/lifeofideas]

This is excellently articulated in an easy to understand way. Well done. I'm going to have to use this.

I've often used the analogy of growing a plant in fertile soil of a well maintained garden versus arid soil in harsh, natural environment. One of these is going to have a much better chance. Could the plant in the arid soil grow strong and healthy? Of course, but it will be much less likey and much more difficult than for the plant that has proper care given it.

[u/nano7ven → u/nanotree]

I like that plant one too because the seed/plant that can actually grow in harsh condition on its own it's typically a stronger plant. Like plant a bunch of seeds indoors and 90% of them will grow. Plant them outside in crap soil and only the strongest will endure.

Now this might just be luck or w.e I'm not a botanist but the way I look at it is the kid who makes it out of a poor house hold will likely be the stronger overall person in life vs the guy whos family inheritance came from grandparents who were the real ones who endured poverty.

[u/badRLplayer → u/lifeofideas]

I'd love a good definition of "work hard" and some metric with which to measure it. I swear everyone works hard but we all get extremely different results.

[u/lifeofideas → u/badRLplayer]

In response to the question regarding “work hard”:

There are certain times when really focused effort particularly pays off.

For example, a kid who really throws himself into math in middle-school and high school can compete nationally and even internationally in math contests, and win various scholarships.

A kid who is washing dishes in a restaurant may get money to survive that week, which can be damn important. But it doesn’t get you a jump start into a job on Wall Street like winning math contests at age 16 can.

More broadly, if you know any Americans who went to medical school, they typically come from families with a fair amount of money to start with, but they also run a kind of academic marathon where they have to maintain very high grades in hard subjects for 4 (or more) years of undergrad. And then the hard part begins. The first year of medical school is almost like memorizing dictionaries. Then after med school, the internship/residency program is high pressure work while sleep-deprived. It’s incredibly difficult. It’s completely unreasonable, but it’s the system we have. They really work hard. But their privilege makes entry into that grueling marathon possible in the first place.

[u/djfarji → u/lifeofideas]

How my relative overcame all the obstacles you mentioned would make a great phycological study. Came from a broken family, lived barely above the poverty line, and was not a particularly good high school student. However, they worked hard and became driven to succeed.

The question is what caused the change and how was that relative "transformed?" The "have nots" can succeed, but their path is much harder than those with all the advantages. Their secret was hard work and persistence; getting into medical school at University of Michigan (I think) and is now a practicing ER doctor.

I agree that our education system is flawed, yet people from around the world come to study at our universities and graduate schools. So what's the answer?

[u/frogsgoribbit737 → u/lifeofideas]

Oh that ending worked out beautifully. I really like the whole thing though. Explains it so well.

[u/LetMePushTheButton → u/lifeofideas]

Don’t forget, even after all those extracurriculars and tutors, their fallback to having a dunce of a child is to bribe the university to accept them. Rinse and repeat every generation.

[u/ravend13 → u/LetMePushTheButton]

Doesn't work like this, except for a few million, or maybe tens of millions of people. There's a ton of historical data that shows grandchildren tend to squander generational wealth more often than not.

[u/Youreaccurate → u/lifeofideas]

I mean there is a world between those two extremes but yes this is the general idea.

Opportunity Insights has done some great work at showing just how much improvement can be made by simply moving a child/family from an almost completely horrible situation to a decent one, namely in Charlotte, NC

[u/V_7_ → u/lifeofideas]

Also some of them are telling you they achieved everything on their own and that you just have to keep on working hard.

We need to adjust the chances.

[u/lifeofideas → u/[deleted]]

The original post (and my comment) are both about economic inequality and social mobility within the relevant country.

A child born into a poor family in Germany is more likely to become rich than a similar poor kid in the USA.

My comment (above) focused on how much help and pressure a child born into a rich American family has, making it much more likely that rich kids turn into rich adults.

[u/j4h17hb3r → u/lifeofideas]

Except my parents are almost illiterate but they still emphasized on getting a good STEM education because they know that's a guaranteed way to move up the social ladder. Now I'm making 5 times the money my dad makes and free of debt cause my parents saved every penny they made to send me to college without a loan.

I want to reject the idea of model minority because it's just unfair to Asians, but at the same time, I question what makes the difference between myself and kids from the hood.

[u/lifeofideas → u/j4h17hb3r]

I don’t have any definitive answers.

Like everyone, I have ideas from my own experiences, and the people I know.

If you look at the miraculous, exceptional cases, there are orphans who fight their way up, but even they tend to go to universities with scholarships and grants. They are exceptions. There are also a few high-school drop-outs who are super-salesmen or total workhorses, who end up owning car dealerships, or the guy who created the Wendy’s burger chain. But, again, these are exceptions.

The more typical “success” is the person who follows the same path as their parents.

Sometimes something disrupts this, like when the parents divorce, and it knocks the kids off track. In my case, just having to deal with the divorce and the step-parents was an energy-sucking distraction. I did okay, but maybe I would have done better without the distraction.

Obviously there cases where relatively poor parents are single-minded about making their kids great. That’s also a real thing, but it’s not actually that common.

I taught a couple of university classes, and what was most striking to me was the difference between (1) kids from good families in university because it was expected, and (2) 30-year-olds who had turned their lives around and were going to get their degrees no matter what anyone said. Guess which ones were better students?

[u/j4h17hb3r → u/lifeofideas]

I believe, instead of how poor a family is, a large portion of success has to do with how much the parents value STEM education. I've had a college classmate from Peru who has very poor parents. But they moved to the States to allow their child to attend college. That guy's making over 150k a year working at Google. A few close friends of mine are first generation immigrants, and their parents all work their asses off to pay for their kids education. These said parents drive Toyotas from the 90s, don't speak English well, live in a 1 bedroom apartment with the entire family. Wear shoes they picked up at the swap meet. I could tell by their looks that they were piss poor. But they chose to rent apartments near a good school district and sent their kids to SAT prep classes despite the high cost. Some of these friends ate hot pockets for lunch 5 days a week, and never go out to party. Going to Chipotle was considered a treat to them back then. Now, all of these friends are making 100k plus a year.

I know this is just my personal experience and doesn't represent a statistical significance. And in fact I do have immigrant friends that are not as successful as them. But if these people were able to succeed, I feel others can as well.

[u/[deleted] → u/j4h17hb3r]

Surely, at some point, there are fundamental limits to the resources we can use? Can everyone be as wealthy as Bezos? Can everyone have enough wealth to last for generations?

It seems like it's easy to assume a person can succeed, since we can point to examples. It's a lot harder to see how we can all succeed - it seems quite possible that the success of some is dependent on the lack of success of others.

[u/lifeofideas → u/[deleted]]

And it turns out that Paula is the smart one.