Just pointing out that opportunity is more important smarts and hard-work.
You've said that - twice now. Sorry, I simply don't agree. It's the current rage to have this opinion and those who regurgitate it are making talking heads proud.
This opinion fits very well into BLM, white guilt, the earnings gap, and whatever other political angle Liberals and Socialists want to take to make people believe that no matter how smart you are or how hard you work, privilege and luck is what really makes people successful. Therefore, since they didn't really "earn" it - they won it - it can be taken and redistributed. Remember, Obama? - "You didn't build that."
I get fed up with this bullshit. It's damaging that so many believe it. Beliefs like these are what make people like Sanders now viable candidates - candidates we'd have laughed out of the room two decades prior.
The vast majority of the time, rich people earn their wealth. They work their ***** to amass it, they take on a ton of risk to build it, and bust hump to protect it. It's no surprise that in my world, where people earn $100K to $400K per year, the highest wage earners are the hardest workers 99% of the time.
But in today's world, Americans perpetually look at the "white rich man" now through goggles that say "he shouldn't have that, he didn't earn that, he walked into that." It's not right that he has it.
This is dangerous rhetoric. It's destroying that American Dream ideal where you can become successful with a lot of hard word and determination and some luck. That ideal drives innovation. The American dream is now becoming "what will they give me?" vs. "what can I make of myself?" It's destroying American drive and ambition. It's thinking just like this - "
opportunity is more important than smarts and hard-work" - that's doing it.
Trump earned his fortune. He worked and works hard. To suggest otherwise is Socialist and destructive. Did he get a head start with daddy's loan? Yep. So what? Do you know how many people get loans only to go into debt and not be able to build on it? Have you ever looked at the venture capital world, where start-up companies seek investment $$ to begin a new business? Do you know what % of those companies actually turn that investment into an ROI, despite stringent vetting processes? Do you know how many restaurants go out of business vs. those that make it? In every case, a small % succeed, a high percentage fail. Getting a loan doesn't guarantee success. In fact, it may be the opposite - it's a high likelihood that you'll fail. It's a gamble.
Donald Trump got a loan. He turned it into billions. There was a higher probability that he would have failed. He didn't. He was wildly successful. You want to say it's because he got a loan. Bullshit. If it was luck, as in a game of chance or opportunity, the odds say that he'd have pissed away that initial investment. Instead, he turned it into a fortune.
"The harder I work, the luckier I get." Every successful person, every one, has benefited from good fortune. Michael Jordan, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Mark Cuban, Hillary Clinton. Look at Oprah Winfrey. Her good luck wasn't money. Hers was that she was born "pretty." You realize she got her start by winning the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant at 17? If not for that, there'd be no Oprah today. From that pageant, she got noticed and hired at a local radio station, then moved over to TV. She was blessed to be attractive. Lucky. She didn't "earn" that if you wanna use Bammy's words, just like Yao Ming didn't earn being 19 feet tall. But Yao and Oprah both worked hard and turned that "opportunity", those blessings, into fortunes.
Like Donald Trump.
But, oops...he's white.