Comment by didgetmaster
2 hours ago
Every discussion about the 'top 10%' seems to make the underlying assumption that the set of people who fall under that category are consistent. While there are certainly individuals who enter the top 10% (or top 1%) and stay there; there are large numbers of people who move in and out of those categories.
For me personally, I am in the top 10%; but a few decades ago, I was not.
The statistical evidence for your claim is not good. There is certainly a generational effect in that 5 year olds are typically not in the upper decile, simply because they generally have little to no individual wealth or income. But in the USA at least, most people die in the same decile they were born into.
Something I've seen a lot is claims about individuals being self made, climbing the ladder from grit and ingenuity and such. Look at Bezos, he's an example of climbing the ladder! Or Zuckerberg!
And when you dig a bit more, you kinda find out this isn't really true?
I mean look at this AI summary of asking "Was Jeff Bezos born into wealth"
> Jeff Bezos was not born into wealth; his mother was a 17-year-old student and his adoptive father was an impoverished Cuban refugee who arrived in the U.S. alone at age 16. However, his maternal grandfather owned a large Texas ranch and later provided roughly $250,000 to help fund the launch of Amazon
Oh so his parents weren't wealthy only his grandparents. That's totally different
You know what my Grandpa gave me? A used car worth about 3 grand. Still amazing, I'm still very grateful to him! But the comparison here is absolutely not in the same league!
And I'm still a fortunate one, because many people get much less than a car from their families
This is bourgeois idealism. In reality, the people in the top 10% remain there and rarely fall
This is a good point I haven't considered in the past and worth to take into the overall discussion.
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