Today most American wealth is inherited wealth. It's been that way for a while now. Gone are the days when the average swell could claim to be a self-made man, who got his through dent of hard work (and/or criminal acts). Now we have a slew of mooks like Donald Trump who were born on third base but act like they hit a triple.
But so what. Wealth is I think, relative. So in order to be wealthy, it makes sense that others have to suffer their poverty.
I heard the same crap 30 years ago. * "Today's youth is so lazy" * "Today's youth has the worst education ever" * "They don't teach them manners anymore" * "They have no future" It's always the same song.
That girl was on Shark Tank. It's always good to hear a story like that. But you can't use one story and ignore everything else. It's much harder to make it these days than it was 30 years ago. The standard of living may have gone up but the ease of wealth accumulation is not there anymore. I mean how many times do you hear about a change in something? The union contract was renegotiated with lower pay, oh but not for older workers, just the younger ones. Social security age being raised, pensions being eliminsted, the list goes on. Add to that ever increasing inflation and stagnant wages and you are always swimming upstream. If you fall behind, it's 10x harder to catch up. I sell cars so I see all sorts of people. Somebody will fill out the credit app. Oh they're retired, at 53. They did 30 years and now they get a pension for life. Who do you think is paying for that? Right, the guy starting off now who won't be getting one in 30 years. We can argue all day about generational wealth and opportunities and I'll concede every point to the 50+ crowd that they want if they just do one thing for me, before you die, pay off the $17T that financed your wealth that you left my generation to pay for.