Ah.. finally a thread to get into without... great for a distraction from trading!
1. I have to say, my feeling from what I see is that getting ahead financially these days in the west is becoming the same as trying to get ahead if you're in some poor Asian country... there are just too many factors out of your control. It may be logically attainable, but practically very much out of reach for enough people to make this statistically significant.
Its like this. If you want a good view to look at from your condo, its simple, just buy a penthouse. But how many of these actually exist? For every gorgeous penthouse view, there will be hundreds of crappy units below that have to be build to support that penthouse up so high.
If everyone actually went to university, and I perhaps think more people go today than ever before, then all this does is diminish the value of university which is what we see today. Too many grads, nothing for them to do.
Just like with penthouses, there are only so many "top" spots in the world. The trick is, how do we make life for the guys in the middle and at the bottom. When we build condo buildings so close together that everyone, unless the guy on the top, has a shitty view, then you get what we have today. We have a world where only the top can benefit, and everyone below is supporting the guys at the top, contributing to them, but not to themselves. The way to make this more fair is to realize that most middle and lower class citizens still make a good contribution to the world that needs to be recognized with a decent wage and opportunity.
Not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. So what are the rest of us to do... roll over and die? Does the majority not deserve stable income, good housing, enough food and a secure retirement? Of course the problem is that those in power, controlled by those with all the big bucks, want to take more and more, and we let them. My feeling is that this is precisely because as things were getting harder and harder, the middle class had less and less time to devote to politics, to making sure they were being fairly represented. Now of course its far too late, until I guess a major reset, whatever that will be.
So since this is in response to your post DOH, I'd like know what, what is the majority to do? Its easy to say get an education, which is fine if you're mentoring your own kid, but if you're supposed to govern a state or country, you can surely see that not everyone can have a degree and a high paying job. So do you tell everyone else their job is to work hard for nothing to serve the needs of the few? How do you balance things out? I'm just sick of this "get more education" response.
3. I find it funny that telling people to spend wisely is offered as a suggestion. Can you imagine if everyone saved more? Lets call it 5%, just 5%. If every poor person skipped one MacDonald's meal, one trip to Walmart, rented one less movie, or downloaded on less app. The bottom line of most corporations would drop 5%! This would cause stocks to plummet.... retirement funds to collapse, government tax revenue to greatly miss the mark followed by major cuts and then of course this all snowballs! So I find this suggestion funny because if poor people could actually organize enough to do this, those with all the assets would pay a much much higher price. This will of course never happen, but its funny that this is your advice because once again, on a larger scale, this would be disastrous to the entitled. Its great advice to the individual, we all know people who buy shit they don't need or will ever use, but in the general sense, the economy could not survive is everyone got smart.
4. Balancing work and study is extremely hard. Its difficult to focus, and once again, only those with rich parents who have all the resources can have an education that is unencumbered by so many distractions. On top of this, the idea that finishing will actually get you somewhere is a crap shoot these days because the debt is guaranteed but the job isn't, so this makes it even harder to focus. Once again, you say get a scholarship, but how many qualify and how many are out there? If its less than 10%, don't even use this as a solution. This doesn't help the majority.
All your examples illustrate examples that help only a few, but do nothing to the health of a nation. Maybe this advice is great for your kids, but as a leader, as a public figure whose job it is to help your community, your ideas would be ineffective.
