sdrealtor, your examples are referring to OLD money. What does old money have anything to do with the average guy? I’m not disputing that East coast have more old money than West coast. After all, West coast started much later than East coast. The same families who start their business now in the West coast, in 100-200 years, it’ll be just like how the East coast is now. So I still don’t see the point you’re making.
Bottom line is, there’s not much differences between East coast and West coast for an average Joe middle class who’s trying to move up. I would love it that my family have been here in the US for 50-100 years but the fact is, my family have only been here for a little over 25 years. So your examples does not apply. That’s what many who are trying to break out of the middle class aspire to. Become old money and make life easier for our kids, grand kids, etc. But that can only happen with time. If I have that kind of money, I would hope my kids aspire to more than just going to college for kicks and be a stock-boy after college. It would be much better if they went to college, make big bucks in somewhere else, hire a manager for $40k and take that $60k as a family profit.
