[quote=bobbysources]
as far as I know, most successful people in US made it there on their own.
In addition to Obama, there are Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter Bill Gates, Warren Buffett,Jerry Yang, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniac, Troy Aikman,Carlos Mencia, A-Rod,Jennifer Lopez, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Kelly Clarkson, Magic Johnson, Lance Armstrong, Brad Pitt, Jody Foster, Jim Carrey. The list goes on and on.
the only exception are George Bush and the Kennedy’s.
I can give 10 “self-made” names for every “legacy” name you give.
the professor is an idiot. case closed.
[/quote]
Basically, in the U.S., your parents economic status is a better predictor of where you will end up economically than in any other Western country.
Incidentally, your list has some issues. Bill Gates, for example, was the son of a very prominent lawyer and a bank executive (and grandson of a bank president) – he was wealthy long before he founded Microsoft. Jody Foster’s parents were hardly poor, and she started acting at 3 – because her mother was a TV producer.
Warren Buffett is indeed self made, as are some of the other names (though it’s interesting how many of the names on your list are entertainment stars of one sort or another – one of the few career paths that really does offer the potential of rags to riches – but industries that are well known for being both fickle and largely based on timing, luck, and genetics).
Of course you can name many self made men and women though – in a country of 300 million, there will be many. But just 1% of those that grew up in the bottom 20% will every rise to the top 5%. Over 20% born into the top 20% will rise to that top 5% however – meaning that most of those in the top 5% were born very close to there already (if not already in it).
Given a fair economy that rewards work evenly, it shouldn’t matter which quintile you grow up in – 5% of each quintile should be able to make it to that top 5%.
In fact, this is closer to what we see in other western democracies. The percentage of people who make it into the top income bracket in, for example, Denmark, is little correlated to what income class they grew up in. Pretty much the best rise to the top. In the U.S., most of the time, most people wind up in their parents quintile, or one of the quintiles bordering it.
