MIT Tech Review reports on a new study which used computer model to analyze wealth distribution in society. It concludes that the majority of riches do not result from talent, intelligence or hard work - but luck. Those who succeed most in modern society are born well and experience several 'lucky events' which they exploit, but are of mediocre talent. The study's abstract states that the model has potential for encouraging investment in the genuinely gifted, and summarizes:
"...if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by mediocre but sensibly luckier individuals. As to our knowledge, this counterintuitive result - although implicitly suggested between the lines in a vast literature - is quantified here for the first time."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:03AM (106 children)
Oh, goodie. More people who don't understand how to acquire wealth telling us it's all luck.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:40AM (63 children)
This study comes as a little for a surprise for me.
I thought that the main attribute driving acquired wealth was sociopathy. In fact, there was a study that compared the personalities of CEOs and people detained in Broadmoor Hospital (where they "detain" the criminally insane in the UK). The CEOs were more strongly sociopaths.
Perhaps luck defines which direction sociopaths turn: CEO or criminally insane.
Are you going to argue that Trump's wealth isn't an accident of birth?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:13AM (51 children)
Oh I absolutely will. His head start was chance but everything he gained thereafter was most assuredly not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:30AM (50 children)
There are a couple of problems with that statement:
1. It's quite obvious that it's easier to make money if you start with money. He got huge advantages from his family connections, and the money he was able to bring to deals. His "head start" has continued through his life.
2. His investments have made less money than had he merely invested in a tracker fund, so he really hasn't shown any skill in business.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:42AM (49 children)
And? What's your point? You think it's all down to luck? Spend all your retirement plans on lotto tickets then. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Now that we've established that even you don't believe that utter bullshit, let's have a sensible conversation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:02AM (9 children)
False equivalence. Making use of the connections and money you have because you were born into a rich family is vastly more easy than winning the lottery.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:20AM (8 children)
Lack of reading comprehension. He made an absurd statement and I invited him to put his money where his mouth is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:22AM (7 children)
You're still equating two situations that are entirely unlike one another. There was no reason to bring up lottery tickets at all.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:13PM (6 children)
Fine, I'll explain it like I would to a small child. If he genuinely believes luck is what creates wealth, then buying lotto tickets is infinitely wiser than saving for retirement. Now, do you still need further help removing your head from your ass?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:49PM (2 children)
If "you" means YOU then yes, you need help. I understand you're head has gotten awfully big of late so it'll be hard, but I'm sure it won't be the last large object you stuff up there.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:25PM (1 child)
Damnit, did I leave my webcam on again?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @04:45PM
I guess its hard to tell with your head surrounded by gluteus maximii.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @05:50PM
That's not an argument being made. No one said that absolutely everything comes down to luck. Once again, an invalid comparison. Deny it all you like, but your point about lottery tickets was irrelevant.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday March 05 2018, @07:29PM
Maybe we can consider not being stupid to be a sort of luck.
I don't know the odds but I know that if you pulled together a bunch of 18 - 21 year olds and asked them have some success related conversations you'd hear some "interesting" things if you prompted them to talk about gambling, hard work, the value of credentials, or running a business. The sad thing is if you pulled together the least successful 10 years later you'd still hear the same bullshit.
Let's see if I can get a few people to respond to this thread with anecdotes about how they got to assistant manager of nothing by getting a degree in anything and working hard until their big break came, and of course how the Millennials can't do this. I expect also to hear from the regular population of "entrepreneurs" on the internet who "did it all themselves" but are paradoxically one government regulation away from being completely broke.
(Spoiled old men and liars)
These are the sorts of people raising most of a generation, these are the people that most young people are using as role models. 'How to get the job your father was downsized and laid off from" , not super good advice.
Of course if you grow up surrounded by people who are actually successful, then your chances of confidently making wise life decisions goes up considerably. Not only that but being a young person with the financial freedom to take risks and casually find your place in life instead of desperately clinging to your first job is a big deal. If you travel to the richest cities in the world, where the wealth comes first before it trickles down the the commoners, peasants, serfs and wageslaves; You'll see that there are huge populations of young, barely employed, rich kids. Oh they think they're broke, the rude barista who can barely keep it together enough to brew a latte without incident, who do you think that is... really? They're all there on their parents dime so they can be there and available where opportunity knocks with regularity. Finding pleasurable volunteer positions is almost a certain pathway to eventually getting an easy cosmopolitan life. If you can afford to work for free until you make friends with all the elderly idle rich running the place.
You think that kind of real opportunity is available to the daughter of a used car salesman and a CNA in Cleaveland, OH? What about the son of a Tyson meats plant middle manager in Arkansas?
Lol these represent households in the upper half of the middle class but there is no fucking way they can expose their children to the type of opportunities that actually rich people can, at best they get an old car and a college fund.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday March 07 2018, @10:34AM
A real pity to spoil that straw-man, Buzz.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:04AM (7 children)
There is a saying. Luck favors the prepared.
You can be presented an opportunity (the luck bit). Being able to act upon that and even seeing that there is one in the first place. Without the skills to act upon luck you get nothing. You may even have the skills and see the opportunities but do not have the means to do so.
Now you can also tilt 'luck' in your favor. You do that by putting yourself into positions where opportunities present themselves.
You are not always presented opportunities. That is luck.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:07AM (3 children)
Couldn't have said it better myself. Watching all these wage slaves spew butthurt over failings that are entirely their own fault is absolutely hilarious.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:57PM (2 children)
"It concludes that the majority of riches do not result from talent, intelligence or hard work - but luck."
The only butthurt in this thread is from you ignoring a study that confirms what most people already know. It's not what you know it's who you know, i.e. lucky to know the right people at the right time. No one said hard works isn't a factor, or that you need some level of competence, but the fact remains that a lot of wealthy people simply got very very lucky.
I would expect nothing less from you than the bender of a tirade you went on since it destroys your libertarian belief that hard work and responsibility are all that is required to succeed in life. You ignore the edge cases, ignore the luck factor, all so you can sit high on your donkey.
You sir are a moron. One of the smartest, but a moron nonetheless.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:29PM (1 child)
If I flip a coin ten times, call heads each time, and am proven out by the landing of the coin each time, you'd say it's luck, yes? What if I then told you it was a two-headed coin? Or that I'd spent an hour a day for a couple years practicing controlling a coin flip?
Just because you don't understand how something is done does not mean it is luck. It only means you are don't know what you're talking about.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:54PM
Circumstances outside of your control are luck, just because you can't understand basic English is apparently everyone else's problem? Go melt little ice demon, your words are wasted here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @03:36AM (1 child)
The means that you so blithely gloss over is, 99 times out of 100, MONEY. Usually as reserves, less often as credit, but if you don't have it your skills count as zero.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 05 2018, @05:27PM
Try having and using some of your own, you'll find out what an idiot you just sounded like.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday March 05 2018, @06:01PM
I guess I need to be lucky enough to be born without a gambling addiction when I inherit a vast inheritance at birth, but other than that, I don't see any particular preparation I would need to receive a vast amount of money at birth.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Informative) by vux984 on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:05AM (24 children)
His point is Trump exemplifies the study; luck not talent got him rich. In fact Trump is so mediocre that someone starting out with his wealth would be wealthier than Trump simply by having put it in a broad fund tracking the stock market and then doing nothing; ie by following the same advice given to folks with zero investing knowledge.
"Spend all your retirement plans on lotto tickets then."
Nobody is suggesting someone can or should decide they're going to be 1 in 10s of million lucky; and then act on that, as if that somehow would work.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:17AM (23 children)
You're still not getting it. Whether his bets were the smartest bets out there or not is irrelevant. That he grew his wealth massively by his own decisions is what matters. The vast majority of this nation would be broke today if they'd got the same start Trump did. Nobody arguing with me has a clue how to acquire wealth other than via a monthly check. And that pisses them off royally.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:48AM (2 children)
It would matter if that statement were true.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:14PM (1 child)
If you have some means to refute that claim, by all means do so.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @04:53PM
It was not his decision to be born out of a wealthy family.
(Score: 5, Informative) by YeaWhatevs on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:49AM (5 children)
Mmmmm, no. People with large inheritances are lucky, unless somehow you can show there is skill involved with choosing rich parents. They to start out with so much money that even relatively mediocre choices result still add up to a whole lot better returns in absolute terms compared to a poor person making better choices.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:16PM (4 children)
Says the person who's never tried it. Care to continue your armchair quarterbacking? It really is cracking me up.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @05:03PM (3 children)
Back atcha fuckface
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 05 2018, @05:38PM (2 children)
You really went for the old "I'm rubber, you're glue" response? Jesus, man... Learn to troll.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:56PM (1 child)
It is funny how you think I was trolling, but I was not surprised since you fail basic language comprehension as repeatedly demonstrated throughout this thread. Your brain has a [personal beliefs] override that short circuits your critical thinking skills.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:38AM
So, you're saying "No, you are!" is an intelligent response in a debate between people who are not under the age of eight years old? Interesting. Sad but interesting.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:51AM (9 children)
I think your not getting it. You wrote:
"The vast majority of this nation would be broke today if they'd got the same start Trump did."
I'm saying: No; they wouldn't be. As long as they did ANYTHING remotely sensible, they'd be in the same ballpark. If all they did was follow the simplest, most basic investing advice they could get.
Trump's 'decision making' ability really didn't amount to anything special; he could have closed his eyes and bought new york real estate by throwing darts at listings and he'd have done as well. If he'd thrown it at any number of major market tracking funds selected by darts, he'd have done as well. Anything that grows with inflation would be fine. Basically, with his start; as long as he didn't do something catastrophically STUPID he'd be in the same ballpark he is now.
To his credit he didn't do anything catastrophically stupid, but that's damning with faint praise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:40AM (1 child)
There are many who win more than a million dollars in the lottery and end up broke. Maybe that is because lottery players tend to have bad judgement, but it does give some support to the point that many could have had Trump's head start and ended up with less instead of more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:14PM
Lottery winners get broke because they are an anomaly in their original social circle, they don't have support network in their new social stratum (as dictated by their new "net worth"), so they just fall off quickly. It's just that they are targeted by everyone.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:12AM (5 children)
We don't have to guess what would happen.
The actual result is that most windfall winners (not just lotteries) flame out badly. They don't follow said basic invest advice and they're surrounded by a toxic culture that chews them up.
Merely preserving wealth would be a big improvement over just luck.
Second, I'm dubious about the valuation of stock market index funds. Such Profit calculators [soylentnews.org] are notoriously inaccurate.
(Score: 3, Informative) by vux984 on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:38AM (2 children)
That's a good point; it's also the case that wealthy families lose their wealth within a couple generations too. The same 70% in fact.
"70% of Rich Families Lose Their Wealth by the Second Generation"
http://time.com/money/3925308/rich-families-lose-wealth/ [time.com]
That's why I didn't go so far as to claim the 'vast majority' would do any better than Trump. I only disputed that trump was in any way very exceptional. He's in the 30% that held onto it. Ok, so I concede he did better than the majority would; and I guess that's an achievement... but it's really not much of one.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:10PM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Sunday March 04 2018, @07:32PM
And you'd be right to do so. I suspect that the people who actually earned it will have setup enough wealth management infrastructure and taught their offspring enough to take care of things for a while, and it takes a full generation for that to fall apart. vs lottery winners who have no wealth management and no skills so they mostly fall apart immediately.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:43AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @05:54PM
As someone who lives entirely on the returns from a stock market index fund I built up over 15 years (by saving almost everything I made), I find them very valuable. One look at history will tell you that they're one of the safest investments you can make, and quite profitable as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @08:16AM
Or at least an honorary one.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless
tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority
of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People
laugh at you a great deal.
Sounds about right to me.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday March 05 2018, @07:38PM (2 children)
I think you're a smart guy but this is pretty much the definition of a bad businessman in the circles trump runs in. Consistently failing to gauge opportunity cost.
He can't lose unless he gets expensive or incapacitating bad habits which is a major concern for the retarded rich.
This may very well be why he doesn't drink. His parents knew he was a retard and drilled into his head that he not get addicted to drugs or alcohol and all their help came with strings attached.
Since he was on daddybux well into adulthood he was spared despite his pleasure-seeking addictive personality.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:41AM (1 child)
Good or bad relative to other businessman is irrelevant. What's relevant is that he could have easily lost everything he was given but instead grew it. Really, bringing Trump into the conversation at all was nothing but an attempt at a distraction.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:29PM
Opportunity Cost is not irrelevant. Rich people budget opportunity the way that normal people might budget actual money.
I'll agree that talking about Trump is tiresome. But Trump and Bush are both great examples of how far luck will bring you, particularly in today's America.
This discussion itself is a great example of your poor fortune not to be born into a wealthy family that raised you to manage a fortune from birth. Even though you might be relatively wealthy you were probably raised on financial folk-wisdom.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday March 07 2018, @10:11PM
That's hilarious from a guy who says opportunity cost is irrelevant. Trump could have dumped his cash in an index fund and spent the rest of his life getting his asshole licked by supermodels. That's that baseline for a guy like trump and he failed.
100% of the people in this thread could learn at least that much about growing wealth in 15 minutes and it's the sort of knowledge you impart on your child when you want to hand them millions of dollars.
You're really revealing YOU don't know anything about growing wealth because this shit is so basic I literally learned it 2 weeks in to my very 1st business class. You can provide some extenuating "buts" but calling it irrelevant is a clear tell you talk a bunch of shit but don't have a clue.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:13AM (5 children)
What's your point? Are you claiming that lotto winners are wealthy because of something other than luck?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:18AM (4 children)
My point is put your money where your mouth is. I have.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:36AM (3 children)
You’ve kissed your own arse?
Hardly surprising.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:19PM (2 children)
If I could reach my own ass with my lips, that is not the body part I'd be putting them on. Think about things before you say them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:02PM (1 child)
After thinking about it first I can safely say: you are a cock swallowing closet dweller.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:42AM
Naw, I'm not that flexible.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:48AM (4 children)
Everything in life is luck!
(Score: 2, Funny) by captain normal on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:35AM (3 children)
For once I have to agree with you. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 04 2018, @09:35AM (2 children)
Thank you, it would be a great honor. Unless you're a loser. I don't like losers. What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday March 05 2018, @01:13AM (1 child)
I guess you totally missed the reference to the last line in "Casablanca". If you are seriously looking to do parody you should study Alec Baldwin's skit last night on SNL, or check out Steven Colbert on "The Tonight Show".
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Monday March 05 2018, @02:13PM
Casablanca, the critics and all the movie snobs love that one. The elites. But maybe, probably, a lot of them have never seen it. Because it came out before I was born -- and I'm not such a young guy anymore. And they could have done it in color, they tried to save money, they did it in Black & White. Which nobody wants to watch anymore. Ted Turner, very smart guy, but he made a mistake with that one. Because in the '80s he bought the rights to Casablanca, and he spent a lot of money on computer, on cyber, to put color into it. So people will want to see it, right? They didn't want to see it, they wanted to be SNOBS. They decided that color wasn't politically correct. So the color one was a major flop. Not because it's bad. Because of political correctness. Sad!
Steven Colbert, very talented guy. I was one of his first guests. When he took over The Late Show from Letterman. Very easy interview, and a lot of fun. He asked me to sign a copy of The Art of the Deal -- that copy is worth a lot now. Maybe, probably, he's a fan. He's said a lot of nice things about me. And some not so nice. About me having gay sex with President Putin -- trust me, that never happened, it's not going to happen, obviously I'm not gay. A lot of complaints to my FCC about that. But I've been great for his ratings. Les Moonves, the President of CBS, he loved my campaign. Because I brought so much money to CBS. People don't know this, Les is on the board of ZeniMax Media. And so is my little brother Robert. Fallout, they do that video game. And many more.
Alec Baldwin's dying, mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL. He's a bitch, he always sends me snippy tweets. And he now says playing me was agony. Believe me, it was agony for those who were forced to watch. That show has really gone down the tubes. It's boring and unfunny, time to retire it! Amazing and very sad that you've seen it and like it. Because anything else would be more interesting and entertaining. The test pattern, anything. Bring back Darrell Hammond, funnier and a far greater talent! He actually LOOKS & SOUNDS like President Clinton, like Bill Clinton.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:59AM
Society and economy are complex, partially chaotic systems.
You can model them but you have to take into account every factor.
And after you do that, there is only a timespan over which the model is OK in the future. And application in the past is about tweaking parameters until it fits.
See weather forecast.
Now, I have no time for TFA, my only question is, does this model include secret societies, magic/spirituality/religion/sexuality (not per se, but in their effects on the singular and social mind), criminal activities with accent on money laundering, the interests of the banking and insurance behemoths (but I repeat myself), the arts/communication AKA propaganda?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:44AM
How successful is his brother who also got the same amount of investment?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 04 2018, @10:03AM
What do you think "exploit" means in
?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 04 2018, @08:44PM (2 children)
I've been in two of those criminal mental hospitals
Most of my fellow patients were genuinely kindhearted people. There were very few sociopaths
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:31PM
That's because sociopaths generally function quite well in society.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday March 05 2018, @01:37AM
But the ones in Broadmoor are. It's not your typical mental hospital.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:56AM (14 children)
Oh, goodie, another comment from somebody who doesn't understand how to acquire wealth mocking those that are trying to study the problem rather than uttering this dribble..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:18AM (13 children)
Please, child. Anyone who does not have any wealth but tells you they know how it is acquired is full of shit. I have almost no ambition beyond going fishing when I want to go fishing and I had enough saved up to sit on my ass without lowering my standard of living for two and a half of the past three years.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:35AM (5 children)
... not much of a feat when your standard of living means living in Mom's basement.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:48AM
It's easy to do regardless with ambitions like mine. I can get by quite happily only bleeding off around thirty grand a year from my savings. It's not even difficult. Not buying stupid shit that I don't need and barely want is the vast majority of my budget plan.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:59AM (3 children)
Lucky to have been borne to a mom with a basement.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:09AM (2 children)
I live in Tennessee at the moment. You don't build a basement here unless you've just always wanted an indoor pool.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Funny) by mhajicek on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:06AM (1 child)
It would make the fishing easier.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:20PM
Holy shit! You're right! Where'd I put the shovel?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:38AM (1 child)
Only two and a half years? Wow, you really are poor.
Though I suppose having any savings at all counts as wealthy in the US these days?
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:51AM
Never said I was out of savings. I just started earning again because I found something that interested me.
Not being in massive debt counts as astounding, fantastic, amazing, incredible financial wisdom in the US these days.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @04:56PM (3 children)
So you're saying you are also full of shit? Since you don't have hundreds of millions of dollars maybe you should take your own advice and stop your own armchair quarterbacking.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 05 2018, @05:32PM (2 children)
I have more than I actually want and I've turned down a whole lot more because it would mean more effort for something I have neither use nor desire for. I'd say that pretty well makes me an expert.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:05PM (1 child)
You are a seriously self deluded person who fixates on one small aspect of reality and decides that is the all encompassing whole. Maybe you should take up Rand's torch and put forth some bullshit for rubes to lap up.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:45AM
Nearly anyone who would actually think about what I have to say already knows and understands what I have to say. Most of the masses give not a fuck about rational thought. They only care that someone has more than them and they want to take it by any means necessary.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by ants_in_pants on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:32AM
What about people with morals?
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:04AM (5 children)
Oh look, a study that (confirms/rejects) my biases, better completely ignore it and reaffirm my dearly held beliefs!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:20AM (4 children)
You'd prefer taking financial instruction from some schmucks who've never actually participated in the economy?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:04AM (3 children)
I prefer taking instructions from whoever makes the strongest argument, and an argument from authority is not a strong argument.
The wealthy know as much about economics as bodybuilders know about medicine. Success does not equal knowledge unless the measure of success overwhelmingly favors the knowledgeable, which is certainly not true for finance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:50PM (2 children)
Ok, so why do you buy into the study [arxiv.org] then? Let's cover some of the problems with it. First, aggressive claims made in the abstract ("with the help of a very simple agent-based toy model"). Second, uncritically repeating rather stupid wealth inequality claims (first paragraph of the intro):
This ignores that someone without a cent to their name owns more wealth than the bottom 30% of humanity (that would be roughly 2.2 billion people!) because of all the otherwise wealthy people who have negative wealth as concerning these sorts of shallow studies due to debt.
Moving on, the actual model is broken with the claim that the ability to gain or lose capital is proportional to the amount of capital, "talent" scales with capital (your ability to increase X amount of capital is equivalent to your ability to increase 100X capital by the same factor), talent also is in practice quite bounded (most people are within a small multiple of each other in terms of talent), and there is no interaction between agents. In the real world, all of these don't happen. The difficulty of low capital agents to gain more capital is well known, but the difficulty of extremely high capital agents to gain more capital is poorly understood (they both require extensive interaction with low capital agents to increase that capital, and can only gain so much capital, if there is only so much in their talent-enabled niches to gain). Finally, variation in "talent" is not tightly normally distributed with areas that have high earning power (ignoring that in the real world, people often highly value niches based on prestige, working conditions, and other non-capital related things) tending to accumulate people with high levels of talents.
Generation of lucky and unlucky events was done by a bogus spatial system:
So right there, they contaminated the model with a variety of confounding factors which among other things would allow them the opportunity to tune the model to yield the desired power distribution outcome.
The end result is that the model for a fixed level of talent and position will generate a normal distribution over a logarithmic scale (it's just a random walk) which by itself will look like a power law. Integrating over all talent levels and positions results in significant smearing that would look like a power law distribution.
The model is also broken in the sense that it measures wealth inequality in the usual, broken manner as described above.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Tuesday March 06 2018, @03:39AM (1 child)
No. I made my comment without any opinion on the validity of the study and my point is not predicated on it's validity.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 07 2018, @03:01PM
Then why bother saying anything at all? Buzz's argument at least uses the context that is present. Let us also note that the "authority" is relevant here. As I noted, the study doesn't actually model wealth accumulation in any sensible manner. That is likely due to the ignorance of the people about matters of the economy the very lack of "authority" that The Mighty Buzzard noted in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:05AM (1 child)
There is a difference between acquiring and producing wealth. Lately, the way to acquire wealth has been to support the correct politicians.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:21AM
Yup and that thoroughly sickens me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:10AM
Wooo, I didn't even have you call you out on this one. People are figuring it out TMB, being a bossy (bully lite) person does not generate truth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:42AM (6 children)
So where are your billions of dollars then, Buzzy? Unless, of course, the study actually IS bullshit, and you're not a billionaire only because you're a moronic fucktard.
So which is it? Is the study accurate, or are you a moronic fucktard?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:28AM (5 children)
I have no desire for billions of dollars. I made as much as I wanted to (Yes, I turned down work that would have made millions for me.) for years running my own business then closed it up and lived off my savings while doing fuck-all but fishing and whatever else I felt like doing. For over two years. I still have savings but I got interested in a project I heard about six months or so ago and couldn't help myself.
I know it butthurts you that you can't understand something as simple as acquiring wealth but you really, really just don't. And pretty much no college professor or student does.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:45AM (4 children)
There's an old saw that you should never discuss religion or politics in polite company. But that's nothing compared to discussing personal finances. People evade and lie more about money than anything else, and not just in words. Lots of poor people put on a big, flashy show designed to impress others with their wealth. But then they turn around and groan about how indebted they are and they can't afford shit, their kids are sick or starving, etc. and so much of that is bullshit. They get madly jealous of those who have a little saved up and the freedom that brings, and may even try to bring them down to their level. Once had a manager start a pissing contest in which the "winner" was the person with the most debt. I refused to participate, wouldn't tell them what debt I had, and they assumed that must mean I was in decent shape financially, maybe didn't have any debt, and they got jealous and angry with me.
People also love the mental shortcut of judging a person's wealth by the car they drive, and cannot believe anyone would drive less than they can afford. And the national religion is to spend. If you don't spend everything you have, it's why are you hurting the economy and "why do you hate America?". Employers too exert pressure to spend, baby, spend. Another boss once told me that he didn't like it that I hadn't bought a new car. Many of them really believe a desperate employee is more reliable, more "committed", so to speak, and one way to make them desperate is get them to rig a financial bomb on their lives. Lose that paycheck, and kaboom! Goodbye house, car, spouse, and your respectability, and your kids will hate you for being unable to feed them. Why, you might even ought to jump from the top floor of the financial institution you used to bank at. Employees who won't put themselves financially upside down to please management are "flight risks". Those kinds of employers and managers seem unable to comprehend that slaves don't make better employees, just can't believe that no matter how many times you remind them that the slave driven society could not win the war with the free society, and it was largely because of slavery that they were so much weaker economically.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 04 2018, @10:40AM (3 children)
If you aren't in debt, what leverage does an employer has to make you swallow their shit?
He was searching the less risky underling to fuck over... mmkay?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday March 05 2018, @02:59AM (2 children)
Why doesn't school cover these issues? Those in the science and engineering disciplines seem to feel they should stick to their science, and that office politics is beneath them, or it's trivial to figure out so no time need be spent educating students about sticky political issues.
Yet we see that such problems aren't easy or obvious, and the reputation is that nerds are especially clueless about people, worse than usual at spotting the sociopaths and handling them. They're apt to be blindsided when some authoritative bozo who only got his position through luck, possibly the luck of having the right uncle, and who secretly hates smart people and enjoys messing with them, makes insincere demands with impossible standards. Or maybe the boss doesn't hate smart people, thinks he's real smart himself but is actually an idiot (Dunning-Kruger effect), and couldn't come up with a sane estimate if his life depended on it, and so the hapless employee is still facing impossible standards. Or the boss feels threatened. What do you do about it? Walk away is a little too easy an answer, but sometimes that is the best thing to do. For all his brains, Dilbert is not very good at handling the PHB.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 05 2018, @03:29AM
Because they usually do change in manifestation in 10-15 years?
Because some of them are anti-values and they should never happen (yet they do happen in reality - see the current outpouring of sexual assault/harassment scandals)? What would you want the school teach before the metoo movement: "in some/many industries, you will be sexually harassed, if you want have your value recognized better be prepared to sleep with the all the males to the top?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 05 2018, @04:16AM
The relevant skills that would need to be thought:
- critical thinking
(- depending on the country specific, the information "that's a dog-eat-dog world, cave canem, use critical thinking and good luck")
I doubt that a certain department of education would approve teaching the above, so I reckon those should fall into the responsibility of the parents (yes, that's a lot to assume/ask from their part).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:33AM
This guy seems to know...
https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_the_single_biggest_reason_why_startups_succeed [ted.com]
Spoiler: Lucky timing is the single biggest factor for success.
(Score: 1) by Sabriel on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:05AM (3 children)
Them: this study finds the majority factor appears to be luck.
You: they're ignorant because they say it's all luck.
Is it a reading comprehension problem or do you have a cognitive bias?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:24PM (2 children)
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. My arguments refute either position equally well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:55PM (1 child)
No, your arguments can hardly be called such. What I think is the most important bit here is actually the pyramid scheme of capitalism and the luck required to snag one of those top spots, where luck equates to factors beyond our individual control.
Your lack of reading comprehension and/or critical thinking is your own problem.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:48AM
That you don't understand how to get ahead in life does not mean nobody does. There's a very good chance you're simply a moron.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @07:59PM (2 children)
You're misunderstanding some subtleness in the conclusion (which is admittedly easy to miss if you aren't used to thinking in terms of large numbers and statistics). The authors are not claiming that's it's impossible to be good at reliably acquiring wealth. Rather, they're claiming that most wealth was not acquired by the most meritorious people.
This shouldn't be surprising if you look at potential talent indicators. Lots of things like IQ (not the best indicator, but everyone is familiar with it) naturally fall into a bell curve and to have notably high aptitude in that area you have to fall into a very small portion (e.g. 0.1%) of the population. You can think of high aptitude as having loaded dice. Unless you roll enough times that everyone reliably approaches their average, chances are the people with high aptitude who roll well will be outnumbered by the normal people who roll well just because there are more of them rolling.
Blackjack seems like an excellent analogy here. If you're part of the tiny portion of the population who can count cards and not get caught, you can make money by simply playing many many hands. Otherwise, your best chance at making money is to start with a lot of money and make very few but very high value bets. Most of the money made from blackjack is not made by counting cards (otherwise the casino would be losing money). Rather, it's made by normal people who got lucky and cashed out before playing too many hands.
Of course, this doesn't apply to positions where a person is tested very frequently and meritocracy shines through (e.g. CEOs)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:37PM
Interesting argument but wealth acquisition is not really prohibitively difficult even for people of average intelligence. Intelligence isn't what is needed, wisdom is. Unfortunately we quit teaching anything even resembling wisdom in the US a long time ago. Which is why the people who have it appear to have magical powers to those who do not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 07 2018, @03:13PM
See the problem here is that when you create models that confirm your biases and then rationalize them by tweaking the loose parameters to fit the model to existing data, then you get conclusions that confirm your biases. But you still don't have a model that explains what is going on.
(Score: 2) by ants_in_pants on Monday March 05 2018, @07:32PM (2 children)
I feel like if anyone knows how to acquire wealth, it's people at MIT.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:49AM (1 child)
College professors and students? What the hell have you been smoking?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by ants_in_pants on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:30AM
People with a BS from MIT make an average of $103k per year. MS $112k, PhD $127k. Those are all over twice the national average.
-Love, ants_in_pants