Wow. I am sorry, but I am obviously sitting in the substantial minority here. I am not wealthy by most standards (though our president would beg to differ), but I am in far different circumstances than I was growing up. This is due solely to the open nature of our system, which rewards people for their ability to provide something that others value.
It starts with the fact that almost anyone can pay for a decent college now, as long as one gets good grades in school. I financed college completely through a combination of loans and private school grants. Now yes it is true that I was more limited in my college choices by who would give me the right financial aid package, but a top of class GPA (or very high anyway) at a decent accredited university will get you in lot of doors.
When I started my company a decade ago, after working for others for many years, it was after I spotted an opportunity to sell services that others valued. But even if I worked in-house somewhere, I would be collecting a mighty fat paycheck, with nice bonuses, fully paid benefits and various other perks, in an officer position with "Chief" in front of it, due to nothing more than years of climbing up the ladder and acquiring valuable knowledge. Net-net I moved several rungs up the socio-economic ladder, due to nothing other than hard work and a college financial aid system that allowed me to earn a needed degree. And I have seen others come from similar circumstances and go far higher than I did, all due to the open nature of our system.
Now I will concede that I probably could have gone much farther if I started from a better spot, but to say that the game is somehow rigged is ludicrous. Now there were many valid points made about kids who start in circumstances so bad (druggie parents, gangs, desperate poverty, etc.) that it is difficult for them to even focus on school work at younger ages, but what can we realistically do about that? Parents have the ability to hurt their kids' future chances and some parents just make bad choices, or don't value schooling for their kids, or [fill in the blank here]. Short of taking kids away en masse from bad and/or stupid parents, I'm not sure what the solution to that particular dilemma really is.
Anyway, just my

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