CDR: Re: Nader

[Tim May]

At 10:43 AM -0800 11/2/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>
>Most of these folks have a perception that they've been locked out
>of doing well -- if your parents couldn't afford a good school, or
>if they can't afford *any* school and you put yourself through, it
>colors your opportunities for at least the first six or eight years
>of your professional career.

Not the crowd I mentioned, ironically. This was at the University of 
Wisconsin campus at Madison. Mostly well-off kids, at a rich campus.

>
>If you're going to think in terms of "doing well," in terms of skill
>and dedication and saving and investment making you into one of the
>upper upper-crust in this culture, you aren't thinking of individuals,
>really.  You really have to think of several *generations* of a
>family building and passing on wealth and opportunity to the next
>generation.  It works for individuals too, but it's much harder to
>do and in a single lifetime the odds against rising from an illiterate
>family with no savings to being one of the super-rich are negligible
>no matter how good you are.  You can get rich enough to live off your
>investments, sure -- but reaching the billionaire league is a multi-
>generational project.

This is not true. Most billionaires in the United States did it in a 
single generation. On the Fortune list of billionaires, most made the 
money by starting companies. Only a handful are heirs.

I won't bother citing the usual figures on how heirs tend to spend 
down the inheritance, not increase it, at least not any faster than 
ordinary T-bill rates would predict.

>
>I've struggled with this one myself.  My folks were hillbillies.  So
>I started with just about nothing, myself.  However, I had opportunities,
>and I took them and did fairly well with them.  Public schools.  Merit
>scholarships to start the college career.  The ability to work two jobs
>while taking classes to finish it.

Mostly a cultural thing. It's very common for Asian ancestry persons 
in the U.S. to work extremely hard, to live with other Asians in very 
crowded houses and apartments, to save most of what is earned, to 
loyally support and lend money to their circle of friends and family, 
and then to start some small business. With hard work, they often 
prosper. By contrast, it is very common for African ancestry persons 
in the U.S. to complain that Whitey hasn't given them enough money, 
that they are owed a good job, to smoke crack cocaine, and to father 
many illegitimate children. Hence the statistics of Asians vs. 
Africans on the welfare rolls. These are cultural, not racial, issues.

Sad, but true.

>
>jobs. These are real opportunities, though most of them aren't of the
>magnitude that fate granted to Bill Gates and his ilk.  I'm on track
>to retire comfortably -- at my current pace, if I can hold it, I will
>be a millionaire within the next five years.  But I'm 37 years old and
>it has taken me this long to overcome where I started.

I won't get into comparing our situations, but I believe the key 
ingredient is work, saving, investment, a positive outlook for the 
future, and more work. It worked for me, no thanks to government and 
taxation.

BTW, most of the younger folks I know in software have no college degree.


>
>I hope we find a way to make such things into palatable business
>propositions and privatize them; I'd hate to see them die with
>governments.

Nothing wrong with indentured servitude. You can read some pieces I 
wrote about this many years ago, circa '93-94. The archives should 
have them.


--Tim May
-- 
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