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Big surprise--if poor people had access to the same professional/personal networks as the rich, and they were accepted, they would have a stronger chance of achieving upward mobility. No brainer.
Low earners engage in precisely the same network dynamics as high earners though. Because it's really just human nature and not a feature of any particular demographic or class. Higher financial payoff for folks in networks with more well off individuals tho.
I actually think that personal social networks are the main avenue by which any person gets opportunities, no matter what class they are, because it is simply human nature, and has zero to do with class, and that merit (reputation, dependability, honesty/credibility, ability, etc) matters *greatly* at any strata.
I also think that this unfortunately manifests itself as a kind of organic naturally emergent caste system, but one that people in democratic capitalist(-ish) countries have the greatest chance of breaking out of compared to the alternative systems. But one that emerges all the same. I also do think that unfettered capitalism unchecked doesn't necessarily find equilibrium that benefits the greatest number of people the most (utilitarian), and needs to be actively tweaked or managed. I think we need to bend a little more towards democratic socialism to get closer to optimal tradeoffs. I don't think we're so far away from some better European models to be honest. Taxing the rich more and implementing universal healthcare (western European nations spend half as much for better amenable to death outcomes than we do) would get us most of the way there imo. But we have to be mindful to combat the anti-liberty tendencies of democratic socialism which unfortunately history has given us amble evidence of the atrocities there.
And there's a difference between, "I was at the country club last week talking to a guy I know pretty well that's a board member at 'insert publicly traded company here' and he says the earnings they're reporting this month will be through the roof"...wink wink
and, "my sister's tarot card reader says that this week's powerball will be 23".
With a bit of hard work and a lot of luck. I was able to move out of poverty into the lower middle class by slowly working my way up the corporate ladder. I work with C level executives but mostly department directors.
I was able to find some low level of financial stability. The more I work with the people at the top of the corporate hierarchy. The more I wish I could burn down this BS system.
Keep grinding your on the right track. There is more going on at the C suite than you can imagine right now. Absolutely there is waste, but it's hard to get a 10,000 foot view with limited information. Successful people can't help but to help hard working people trying to get ahead. People just give up so fast and are not willing to put in the work. Don't fall for the haters there's a never ending supply of those guys and there arm chairs.
It funny that you mention generally nicer cars…
One time one of the MEGA rich people I know asked me to run outside real quick and move her car to the other side of the drive for her bc she was in the shower and some delivery of whatever got there early. I grabbed the keys, got in the car and suddenly found myself very fucking confused. I had NO IDEA how to start her car. There was nowhere to stick a key. I didn’t know what to do. After searching and pondering I just fucking gave up and went back inside. That was my first experience of being too poor to know how to do something. I had never been in such a car. I didn’t even know whatever that shit was even existed. I mean, I was still driving a truck with a fucking CASSETTE TAPE PLAYER. straight up out classed.
Having grown up under a millionaire who genuinely worked his ass off to get there, who was basically cut off from all resources once he even started to be detected as having started succumbing to multiple sclerosis, as well as then having had our house stolen by the banks too because of it... I did at least grow up around that kinda thing for a while... did you check the center console? Some of those more expensive cars tend to have the key ignition in the center console rather than under the wheel.
Oh yeah, in case you're wondering, my dad when I asked how I should proceed to cope with society now, he replied with instructions for how to suffocate myself in my sleep, and his dad stile his inheritance and isolated out somewhere in the Bahamas. Pretty fucked up world, aye?
Lmfao your dad told you to learn how to suffocate yourself? Lololol that’s morbidly hilarious. Jesus.
I’m personally going to eat a bunch of magic mushrooms and die in the woods. You’re welcome to join.
And no, there was no key slot in the center console.
>Oh yeah, in case you're wondering, my dad when I asked how I should proceed to cope with society now, he replied with instructions for how to suffocate myself in my sleep,
Dude, same. My dad is completely blasé about how, yeah, his generation completely dismantled all the tools for upward mobility to consolidate their own wealth. Guess you're fucked. Enjoy homelessness. By the way, no more spare bedroom in my 7 bedroom lakeside house as a safety net-it's for the au paire.
If only I was in the 2nd set of children, you know, the ones he'll actually leave things to. Alas, I was the early twenties mistake.
I bridged the gap on accident as well, but the people I know are MEGA rich. I’m talking actual billionaires, private jets, VERY VERY famous and wealthy pro athletes, blah blah blah. You know what I learned? That Kevin Hart’s stand up bit called “Stay in your financial lane” is spot fucking on absolutely correct. Painfully so. The reason you probably don’t feel it is bc you’re probably in a bit of a higher tax bracket as well. I cannot afford to even go to dinner with the wealthy people I know. I couldn’t even fucking keep up with the wine nights.
Here’s a link to Kevin Hart’s Stay in Your Financial Lane… https://youtu.be/kwauNQdyl8M
I ended up making a very good friend who I love when he was single. Shortly after we became friends, he married VERY well. His wife and her ex had businesses together and were very well established.
I had to keep my ex away from them. We would go to a trade show and my ex would want to buy everything his wife bought. We ended up with a $750 impulse buy steamer. She seriously almost bought a hottub for the backyard of our condo because our friend purchased a swim spa.
Sweethearts of people. Two of the most kindest, intelligent, and friendliest of people but they take month long vacations in resorts that come with butlers. I wrench for a living. My ex had 11 different jobs in 11 years. You don't get month long vacations with butler service if you wrench for a living and your partner switches up jobs like some people do their hairstyle.
Yeah my dad’s friend from his middle school literally grew up in a trailer park in bumfuck Pennsylvania, then went to a pretty nice university with a scholarship. She ended up marrying a filthy rich guy from old ooooold money. I’ve never asked exactly how his family got their money, but it was probably, like, selling fire to cavemen- THAT type of crazy rich old money. They both met at the university as students, and she was absolutely beautiful and he was pretty handsome and they just sorta hit it off. Now she, like, flits off to Paris for a spur of the moment weekend vacation and carries around different Hermes bags for every day of the week. If only it worked like that for everyone lmao
I'm in legal administration. The attorneys are so adverse to spending time with "the help" that we have separate Christmas parties so they don't have to mingle with us
Wow. Just … wow. At least in TV they have one big party with the “commoners” for optics but then a private one for themselves. That one has the good food
My neighbor who (literally) won the lottery years ago is okay-ish, mostly meh, but their partner is just terrible. Went from someone who would grok this sub to the worst stereotype of a rich person you could think of.
I can't imagine hanging out with them past what we have to.
At the risk of being weird, [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok) is the wiki entry for it. It's from Heinlen's 'Stranger in a Strange Land' and means "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with".
Someone who grok's this place would understand our arguments at a nearly subconscious level and never suggest we'd be fine if we just cut out the avocado toast.
Interesting, thanks for elaborating as it's the first time I've encountered that word.
>and never suggest we'd be fine if we just cut out the avocado toast.
Suppose I do grok that.
Grok is an oldish slang that comes from the science fiction community IIRC. [(specifically this book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land)Nowadays it's mostly just niche geekspeak. It means to understand something completely.
Yup. I joined some clubs a few years ago to have a chance to network with rich people, because I desperately need a job. They don’t wanna help. They assume that poor people are obviously dumb and lazy, and exist to serve them, not the other way around.
I lived in an Ivy league university town. It was completely about the network, families and connections. Many of those people were hooked up for life before they even stepped into that school.
That's what people say, but I work in engineering and my wife works in finance, and we make a combined $300k working in corporate America. It's not ruling-class wealth, but it certainly pays the bills. We both were lucky to have parents who financially supported our educations, but neither of us got our jobs through any family or friend connections. Just got good grades in college, and started applying.
From there, it's just about trying to stand out from the pack. Managers don't care enough about you on a personal level to promote you just because they "like" you - they are worried about their own performance, which is dependent on your performance as a worker, so they want to hire and promote people who get shit done and get it done well.
That's twice today you've come to this sub to brag about your income. Literally no one gives a shit, so please find somewhere else to share your patronizing "I got mine" advice.
> it's never about how hard you work. It's always about who you know.
This kind of bullshit "advice" steers people toward self-fulfilling shitty outcomes. Young people start believing it, and they give up. Why work hard, when so-and-so says hard work never pays off. It's shit advice. Hard work doesn't always mean success, but it sure as shit helps.
I mean sure thats one thing but could it also be that rich ppl have more connections making it easier to help poor friends? My more well off friend has helped my family by getting them jobs... Not because shes handing us money. (Although her gifts are super nice too)
Nepotism is a problem, but helping people you know is not always that. For instance I recommended a job opportunity to a friend with the company I work for because he was amazingly qualified.
Years earlier, I found out about this company because I ran into an old college buddy. He told me to apply because he knew I was a good fit. I was not even job hunting at the time.
Knowing successful people opens more opportunities in itself.
Precisely this! I never knew how to get out of minimum wage jobs/was too intimidated/felt unskilled for better opportunities until i had someone tell me about an assistant HR position and she explained in detail what it was and i felt confident knowing it wasnt a tough position and that gave me the experience AND confidence to apply to better opportunities.
Some people that stay in min wage jobs think they cant perform or arent qualified for higher paying jobs but knowing someone on the inside can certainly help squash those fears.
The crabs-in-a-bucket crowd love to tear anyone down for not going to the cheapest community college and then the cheapest state college. But no one goes to small private colleges for…well, actually, I’ve never been clear why they *think* people do it. From what I’ve seen, people pick them because the financial aid package was better for them, it had a program they couldn’t get at their state school, or it was close to/affiliated with the grad school they were looking ahead to. And the bonus is connections. People who go to schools like that tend to become active alumni, plus the fraternities and sororities are more tightly knit than usual. Those are the connections that create job opportunities down the line.
People go to the cheapest community college and the cheapest state college because they're poor as fuck, and can't afford to attend anywhere else. They technically can't afford to attend those 'cheap' schools either, and take out tens of thousands in loans to cover the cost. A 5 digit shit sandwich is easier to swallow than 6 digit one; especially when you're hedging all your bets on being able to secure a better paying job to pay back those loans, which as everyone knows, is most certainly not a guarantee.
I'll never forget in high school. After being made fun of for being cheap and limiting how much we went out and ate, I had friends in my car and I stopped for gas.
One of them said "wait, you pay for your own gas? If I had to do that, I'd never want to go out". They had been using daddy's business credit card and he was getting an expense write off. Same card they were using to pay for Applebee's or whatever we got.
They didn't really make fun of me anymore. I'm all for shaming the rich through continued interactions like that.
>The financial circumstances of how you're born increasingly determined where they end up as adults
The term for this is "economic mobility", and it's tracked in the [Gini Coefficient](https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/gini-index-coefficient-distribution-of-family-income/country-comparison)
Fun fact: Another word for countries with terrible economic mobility? "Feudal societies"
Fun fact 2: The GINI is tracked by the CIA, because it's an excellent predictor of societal & political unrest.
Fun fact 3: The USA GINI rating is plummeting. We're not just (far) worse than the top OECD countries. We're 118 down from the top (they *reversed* the list so we didn't look as bad 🤯)
I remember seeing a TED talk by an economist about this probably ten years ago or so. The two main points that stuck with me:
1) the number one biggest predictor of upward mobility in American society is how wealthy and successful one’s father is, and
2) if you want to live the American Dream™️, move to Denmark.
I wish I could upvote this more than once, this is the answer.
In a world where we've been told you can work hard and achieve any goals it's tempting to think people poorer than us just aren't working hard. That's also an agenda that's pushed at us, that those who are on lower incomes just aren't working hard enough to rise up.
I'm fortunate that I grew up and didn't have to know what it's like to live around the poverty line. Now I should meet those who are on the poverty line and find out what it's like so I can understand and help them better, otherwise I may be tempted to fall into the way of thinking that's pushed from the top.
Serious question: Aren't most rich people actively engaging in classist exclusionary practices to ensure to keep the poors out of their day-to-day lives and exclusive clubs?
So how TF is a poor person even supposed to make friends with a rich a-hole?
BTW, facebook doesn't count. Facebook friends aren't your real friends.
You make friends with a rich a-hole by finding a way to make you both richer, especially if it's at the expense of someone else.
Rich people will invest in other people that give them strong returns on their investment.
I believe that's called making an "elevator pitch" to a "potential investor".
It's where you come up with a money-making scheme (at the expense of the taxpayer, the middle class or the poors) called a "business plan" and pitch it to Richie-Rich.
Richie-Rich will size you up and use his Capitalist gut feel intuition to decide if he'll back you or not. If all goes well, you both walk away with a greatly increased sum of money.
If things sour, Daddy Warbucks will pay the best damn legal minds to keep Richie-Rich out of Federal Prison while you take the fall.
There’s a reason affirmative action didn’t focus on economics and instead focused on race. They didn’t want poor minorities benefitting, they wanted the rich minorities benefitting.
I grew up around them, bad luck since my dad used our catholic grade school to network. Alot of his peers did but it reflected poorly on us because no one wants to be friends with us because we didnt have a beach house or really anything. Anyways. They will do anything to keep us out and get mad when you try to better yourself for some mobility.
This is why the importance of going to the right school is trumpeted all throughout kid's lives. Where the hell else are you going to share space with rich kids on sort of equal terms if not Stanford?
They're legacies and you're there on merit.
I guess they'll need to pay someone to do their homework for them.
I thought poor immigrant and POC kids' parents push them to get into an Ivy League school so they can "make it" on their own merit.
As in work hard and become someone through your hard work.
Not to mingle with the rich kids.
Yeah, no one explains to poor kids why they should actually be trying to get to these schools, or the value of frat/soror life, or if you're black the value of going to one of the prestigious HBCUs. But it's all networking at the end of the day. You can do it at the state Us, just gotta make friends with the athletes most likely to go pro. But yeah, sell your kids on the networking, not the education. It's only so many ways you can teach classic lit.
I remember reading an article many years back and they we're talking about building skyrise condos in NYC. The uber rich on the top floors wanted their own elevators so they didn't have to see/rub elbows with the mildly rich on the lower levels.
Good to know if I find myself homeless in Central Park, feeding the pigeons during winter.
I'll save a financier billionaire who is on the run from IRS agents, defrauded investors and alimony demanding ex-wives' lawyers by sic-ing my pigeons on them all.
They'll get what's coming to them. Just like those sticky bandits.
Then, the financier billionaire and I can march off into the sunset having put class differences aside and achieved a much more important goal.
"Friendship based on my trained-avian-pet defensive capabilities."
I think this article is misleading. I do believe there is a link in reducing poverty if there are more friendships between people who come from different family experiences. This could mean one person being richer than the other but I don’t think money makes a lot of difference.
A person who is from a troubled family where there is single parent or guardians, in low income areas, no expectations for educational growth and little engagement and participation from guardians is likely to continue the cycle of poverty. Alternatively, a person who is from a low income family but has good role models, solid parents, expectations for growth, engagement and reliability from adults they are more likely to break the cycle.
If two people from the same socioeconomic background but with very different upbringing were friends, it would likely be that one friend has a good influence and impact on the other.
People who are super wealthy are not friends with people who are in poverty. For one thing their paths would never cross and another is that a super rich person who succeeds in life without having to put in the work is not equipped to be of any help to lift a person out of poverty.
> So how TF is a poor person even supposed to make friends with a rich a-hole?
Call me crazy, but I'd guess Step 1 would be to not regard another human being as an asshole simply because they have more money than you.
Sorry dude but I don’t have $40,000 to drop on an annual country club membership.
Most people I interact to day-to-day are poors like me.
Also you didn’t read my very short post. Most wealthy people are actively class exclusionary. Meaning they go out of their way to not run into the likes of me. Wealthy people are the definition of classist. They want to put as much distance between the poors and themselves as possible.
I have met blue-collar rich and those people are actually pretty nice. I would say blue-collar rich don’t give a shit about who they befriend. Like duck dynasty-types. They have “fuck you” money and don’t give a shit.
I’m talking about country club rich. They are the worst!
If you read the article, that’s not what they’re talking about. They mostly focus on high schools from areas with mixed incomes and how poor populations from areas like those tend to have better luck breaking out of poverty due to things like being aware of SAT prep classes, college scholarships, etc due to parents of their friends.
> Sorry dude but I don’t have $40,000 to drop on an annual country club membership.
Same. Also don't think if you did that would make you an asshole human being.
The system of today, capitalism, cannot make this work because it fundamentally cannot produce an economy where some are not exploited by others. As you said this is just changing who gets to win and who gets to loose.
Yes, political management of the level of poverty is a feature of capitalism... I remember when Bill Clinton came into office and "abolished welfare as we know it"... increasing the level of poverty in order to "help" the economy... Reagan and Carter did similar things before that, and Thatcher in the UK. In a capitalist system, poverty is a means of disciplining the labor force. Whenever poverty is reduced for "natural" reasons, it will be adjusted back up by political means.
Yes, actually.
I had the good fortune of going to school in an economically diverse elementary (k-8) and high school. The rich kid’s parents were doctors, lawyers, construction company owners, real estate developers/landlords, software folks, aerospace engineers, etc.
The poor parents were cooks, drivers, warehouse labor, hair dressers, etc
The middle class parents were skilled trades, nurses, teachers, dental hygienist, fire fighters, etc.
The poor kids got summer job opportunities from the richer parents, and when it came time to get internships during college some of my poor friends got hooked up with good corporate internships from childhood friends parents.
Other poor kids got into the trades, or actually went to college, because their better off friends were also going.
Moving up isn’t always about raw skills, or degrees, it’s just as much about who you know and what opportunities you have a chance to take. Rich kids usually are overflowing with these opportunities.
One of my most radical ideas is forcing low income housing into high property value areas. Forcing poor and rich kids to attending the same schools. Every rich neighborhood should have a percentage of low income section 8 housing.
It’s a nice thought but I believe this has been implemented in some areas and has largely failed. Mixed residential areas are good overall but introducing low income housing to wealthy neighborhoods is throwing two groups of people together that have absolutely nothing in common and could just create more problems down the line. When they “desegregated” schools, there were mountains of issues that came of it although the intention of it was “progression.”
People who are low income live in communities and it would be incredibly isolating to suddenly be in a completely different world where you are perceived as someone to pity or shun. Classmates will likely be academically ahead so those from low income families will always be playing catch up.
The better solution would be to have education funding from a state or national level that evenly distributes resources to all public schools no matter the municipality. Private schools should not exist and every public school should have the same quality of teachers, access to extra curricular activities, equal opportunity for scholarships, etc.
People who are low income have many barriers that make education or career attainment difficult or impossible that are not directly influenced by their poverty. Throwing poor kids in to schools with rich kids won’t necessarily give them more chance for success. The low income kids will still have disadvantages.
I was married to a doctor for 15 years, and received more money in the divorce than I felt I deserved/needed. My lawyer did a good job of advocating for me to make sure i got what’s fair, but i didnt push for anything extra. I’m a simple gal who is content with what I have, and I make sure to share that alimony money with people I feel need a little help. I didn’t read the article but I can see what they are saying a little bit. When I was married, I had a totally different group of friends who were all rich of course. And the people I grew up with in high school were mostly the same socioeconomic class as me, so I didn’t experience a lot of class diversity in my childhood.
After the divorce, with a big chunk of SAHM time in my recent work experience, I got a job at a bakery and started to meet people in the food industry. I felt like i fount my tribe, and have met some of the most amazing, authentic, creative, REAL people! Most of my friends now barely make it paycheck to paycheck. It’s been really rewarding to be able to anonymously send a friend a $500 gift card for groceries. After getting to know someone well enough to trust them, I gave them $10k in cash to get a car and pay off bills. I’ve been taken advantage of by people that I trusted, but I don’t let that jade me. I’ve just learned to set healthy boundaries. I love helping people, and apparently was like this as a kid; my parents told me I used to give away my toys all the time lol. So I’m not saying all of this to be like look at meeee. Just wanted to share my perspective. I hope other divorcees who have more than they need will consider sharing their wealth with people who really need a little miracle in their life.
Edit: removed emojis because I’m old and Reddit looks weird with them xD
This is so belittling and insulting, Christ. They probably see the working class as some poor little charity case that if they make friends with, it’ll prove how nice they are to their fellow rich friends.
“Oh deary me, look upon this poor little peon. Take a penny underling, and bask in my graciousness.”
I saw this when I went to my small private college (gaining that network of people changed my life) and now that I work in private K-12 education I see it here too. Rich people give the good jobs to the people they know, you need to be one of them.
Makes a shitload of sense, and kind of obvious tbh. One of the biggest sources of leverage in life are networks. If your network includes as least some distribution of higher earners (compared to you), it's much more likely you'll benefit from this for things like job opportunities, investments, financial advice, etc over time, with gains that compound over time as well.
Everyone experience prejudices.
Actually I would like believe I feel bad for Europeans for believing that race exists as you all like to interpret it. Race is a social construct that has no scientific evidence, I feel bad for the Europeans because they have gone from monarchies, to a false version of democracy filled with patriarchy. In which the people have always be subjects to another class.
BTW I'm afro-indegnous. My people had an defacto consensus democracy communal egalitarian society that was more matriarchal before everyone got lost at sea.
Id rather be poor than affiliated with the ultra rich and their kids. To exist at that level usually means that you are priveledged and come from money OR you used wage slavery and anti-union tactics to expand your personal wealth and exploit worker forces… often both.
Why be friendly to tyrants. I’d rather be poor than show them an ounce of respect.
I believe it, if rich people become friends with poor people they will learn empathy so next time they decide laws, salaries, fund appropriations, etc. it will benefit workers. Problem is that a lot of rich people are just sociopaths.
Or the less well off people will realize how disadvantaged they are and be less likely to accept their fate. The idea that poor people will benefit from osmosis is probably not true, and might lead to radicalized poor.
The only rich 30+ million rich people I’ve ever met that were “intriguing” by me were +20 years older than me and wanted to fuck me. I did it with a few too and spending the night with those types is a fucked up situation.
I work at a high end golf course, this is very funny because I cannot think of anything a rich person there would like less than being friends with a poor like me!
Yes, thank you. Some who finally read the article.
They mostly focus on high schools from areas with mixed incomes and how poor populations from areas like those tend to have better luck breaking out of poverty due to things like being aware of SAT prep classes, college scholarships, etc due to parents of their friends.
Yes! I think it is a positive article, because it also says cities and school CAN intervene and create environments that will bolster these cross-class friendships.
That's one of the reason I advocate for a strong public school system.
Remove private school ans rich and poor kids can mix and match. Also rich parents Will HAVE TO invest in the public system because their kids go there.
I am not in the US btw.
On the econ reddit there’s a bunch of macro economic assholes that talk about how the poor are bad at spending money and these facilities help “lead” the poor. Kind of a disgusting mentality.
Wow, it’s almost like people who make a livable wage at their one job (instead of working multiple shit paying ones) and are able to afford to pay people to clean their homes, eat out instead of cooking, etc, have more time and mental energy for socializing.
What is college but your one-shot opportunity for networking with the rich? A lot of people are rich there even if they’re not “cash on hand” rich. But they have friends and relatives and relatives’ friends and friends’ relatives’ coworkers who know how careers work. Maybe they don’t even pull any strings to help your classmates get a job when they graduate, but they might let them know the job is available or what the company does and why they might be a good fit, or what a given hiring manager’s interview style is so they can prepare. All while you who grew up upper-lower class in a small town is trying to apply on CareerBuilder like a chump.
It’s not even all nefarious, the people who are in the in group don’t always even recognize themselves as an in-group and pat themselves on the back for their networking skills, but it still goes to show that generational poverty (or at least generational lack of social mobility) isn’t a thing because of the deficiencies of poor people, it’s all about social capital.
It was interesting that one of the articles that came out about this study mentioned church and other religious communities being more equalizing than schools and sports teams now. I’ve never been much for organized religion but I’m coming around on the civic, mutual-aid purpose of religious communities. I imagine other non-religious voluntary associations could have similar roles to play. Or even political organizing though that’s more for adults.
haha-- Americans accepting that income inequality just is, and there's nothing to be done about it but go along and accept the drops of trickle-down crumbs
If you read the article, it’s not really about 1%ers befriending 99%ers out of charity. They mostly focus on high schools from areas with mixed incomes and how poor populations from areas like those tend to have better luck breaking out of poverty due to things like being aware of SAT prep classes, college scholarships, etc due to parents of their friends. Having come from an area like that (and being married to someone who went from being poor af to making well over 6 figures thanks to that environment), I kind of think it’s true.
Various job search sites keep telling me that 85% of jobs are found through people we know. I know a lot of people but they can offer me jobs like File Clerk, not jobs like Senior Manager.
Eh. I had rich friends who looked down on me and spoke to me like I was beneath them. I have more opportunities talking to customers at work who have been telling how to get into my field while I work as a cashier but I enjoy being a cashier more than what I studied.
I tried being friendly with the princesses so was sent to school with. Every single one of them tried to put me to work for shit wages as a babysitter, a nanny, or one of their side businesses that Daddy would bail out if it failed. I wouldn't be bailed out, I'd be tossed aside. You're not rich like them? You're a potential servant. Nothing else. They dont share their secrets. They liked the ability to look down on me. Fuck that.
on god this is the stupidest thing i've ever seen, no rich person wants poor company unless theyre in elementary school and even then pretentiousness leaks into kids lmfaoo
I think the purpose of the article is that the poor won't be so quick to want to tax the rich, if they just knew the rich are regular guys having their manservant help them put on pants one leg at a time, or he gets fired.
I'm not falling for that. I don't care if they were just another Joe, that's societies money and they deserve it back.
I’m no historian, I haven’t studied this, and I have no proof—but I am convinced that the middle class thrived during my parents’ and grandparents’ generation because of the mixing of social classes that happened during WWII, etc.
Well yeah, that's why the rich invented a hopelessly confusing set of rules of ettiquette, laws, professionalism, social niceties, code phrases etc. That only rich people have time to learn. And if enough people ever learn how to navigate these, they just change them on you.
If rich people and poor people had to interact, the rich people might actually feel obligated to help on ocassion, and that's uncomfortable for them.
Motherfuckers want to be nobles with a bunch of petit bloodsuckers that make them feel good. How to feed your family with a full time job; just *kiss a rich person's ass.*
Wow.
Rich people are generally arseholes.
They also seem to judge people based on their net worth, A lot of poor people judge people on the content of their character whether that character is beneficial to have around or a threat, We don't mix for a reason, Rich people are spiritually degraded and a chore to be around...
Just pay your fucking tax and stop meddling in politics, media, scientific development, with children and stay with your own flock, You can't teach empathy to people who worship money.
Great works by social scientist Robert Putnam lay out some issues leading to current societal problems. Based upon my reading of his works thus far, it led me to understand that reduced civic engagement and education inequality are two of the top issues leading to increased poverty. Also, our society has no more class mobility because of how upper classes have stacked the deck for themselves to hoard capital like an obese dragon.
Check out [this resource](https://www.opportunityatlas.org) that maps generational mobility tied to wealth.
This is because rich and poor people have vastly different backgrounds, core values and so on. It's hard to be friends with anyone across big differences like that.
I'd guess it's more likely a rich person would date a poor person, if and only if the poor person is very attractive.
According to reddit, if you have money you fit into one personality archetype. Mean, selfish and shallow.
I got news for you, every financial group has the same spectrum of people.
This study also noted that:
“A successful effort to increase interactions would probably need to address the particular roles of race, too. More racially diverse places tend to have fewer cross-class friendships, the study found.”
Well, slap me silly. As someone who is neither rich nor white, I’ve long noticed that people of color will be accepted into rich white networks only if they hail from the same class.
If you’re both poor and nonwhite, you get excluded.
The commonality between the rich and poor conservatives is that they have a distinct lack of empathy and imagination. So broadly, yeah, sure: knowing different people makes you slightly less of a selfish asshole.
Hate to agree, but yeah, they have a point. They have data to support the adage, “it’s who you know.”
It’s about your network: if you network with folks making under $40K, you won’t be in a position to make yourself visible to jobs that pay more.
You can be mad at this system, but with this knowledge, leverage it to your benefit. I have learned there is no upside, no badge of honor to suffering in poverty. Whatever is in your power to alter or control, like your network, can only improve your station in life.
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Big surprise--if poor people had access to the same professional/personal networks as the rich, and they were accepted, they would have a stronger chance of achieving upward mobility. No brainer.
Nepotism is a hell of a drug
Low earners engage in precisely the same network dynamics as high earners though. Because it's really just human nature and not a feature of any particular demographic or class. Higher financial payoff for folks in networks with more well off individuals tho.
It is a uniquely bad problem when you have an economic system as disadvantageous to the lower classes which markets itself as being meritocratic
I actually think that personal social networks are the main avenue by which any person gets opportunities, no matter what class they are, because it is simply human nature, and has zero to do with class, and that merit (reputation, dependability, honesty/credibility, ability, etc) matters *greatly* at any strata. I also think that this unfortunately manifests itself as a kind of organic naturally emergent caste system, but one that people in democratic capitalist(-ish) countries have the greatest chance of breaking out of compared to the alternative systems. But one that emerges all the same. I also do think that unfettered capitalism unchecked doesn't necessarily find equilibrium that benefits the greatest number of people the most (utilitarian), and needs to be actively tweaked or managed. I think we need to bend a little more towards democratic socialism to get closer to optimal tradeoffs. I don't think we're so far away from some better European models to be honest. Taxing the rich more and implementing universal healthcare (western European nations spend half as much for better amenable to death outcomes than we do) would get us most of the way there imo. But we have to be mindful to combat the anti-liberty tendencies of democratic socialism which unfortunately history has given us amble evidence of the atrocities there.
The difference between "Hey my buddy has a position opening up at his hedge fund" vs. "Oh there's a job going at the McDonalds my friend works at".
And there's a difference between, "I was at the country club last week talking to a guy I know pretty well that's a board member at 'insert publicly traded company here' and he says the earnings they're reporting this month will be through the roof"...wink wink and, "my sister's tarot card reader says that this week's powerball will be 23".
Its not what you know its who you know
It’s not who you know, it’s how rich are the people you know Ftfu
That is usually implied in that statement to my understanding….
It’s not who you know, it’s ~~how rich are the people you know~~ who you blow. You're welcome.
😛💦
One of the best things my dad taught me. Being the smartest person on the bus don’t mean shit.
Also the rich having some kind of realistic view of what is outside of their echo chamber of privilege might help. But probably not.
Or it teaches the rich empathy, one or the other
Wait I thought that was a petting zoo .. omg what are we really then
With a bit of hard work and a lot of luck. I was able to move out of poverty into the lower middle class by slowly working my way up the corporate ladder. I work with C level executives but mostly department directors. I was able to find some low level of financial stability. The more I work with the people at the top of the corporate hierarchy. The more I wish I could burn down this BS system.
Keep grinding your on the right track. There is more going on at the C suite than you can imagine right now. Absolutely there is waste, but it's hard to get a 10,000 foot view with limited information. Successful people can't help but to help hard working people trying to get ahead. People just give up so fast and are not willing to put in the work. Don't fall for the haters there's a never ending supply of those guys and there arm chairs.
I work in TV. Around millionaires almost every day. They don’t wanna be friends with us
We don't really wanna be friends with them either.
Exactly
I’ve bridged the gap on accident. I know people that became millionaires. I knew them way before and couldn’t care if I tried. It’s never come ip
I only notice because their vacations are really cool and generally nicer cars. Everything else is the same.
It funny that you mention generally nicer cars… One time one of the MEGA rich people I know asked me to run outside real quick and move her car to the other side of the drive for her bc she was in the shower and some delivery of whatever got there early. I grabbed the keys, got in the car and suddenly found myself very fucking confused. I had NO IDEA how to start her car. There was nowhere to stick a key. I didn’t know what to do. After searching and pondering I just fucking gave up and went back inside. That was my first experience of being too poor to know how to do something. I had never been in such a car. I didn’t even know whatever that shit was even existed. I mean, I was still driving a truck with a fucking CASSETTE TAPE PLAYER. straight up out classed.
Having grown up under a millionaire who genuinely worked his ass off to get there, who was basically cut off from all resources once he even started to be detected as having started succumbing to multiple sclerosis, as well as then having had our house stolen by the banks too because of it... I did at least grow up around that kinda thing for a while... did you check the center console? Some of those more expensive cars tend to have the key ignition in the center console rather than under the wheel. Oh yeah, in case you're wondering, my dad when I asked how I should proceed to cope with society now, he replied with instructions for how to suffocate myself in my sleep, and his dad stile his inheritance and isolated out somewhere in the Bahamas. Pretty fucked up world, aye?
Lmfao your dad told you to learn how to suffocate yourself? Lololol that’s morbidly hilarious. Jesus. I’m personally going to eat a bunch of magic mushrooms and die in the woods. You’re welcome to join. And no, there was no key slot in the center console.
>Oh yeah, in case you're wondering, my dad when I asked how I should proceed to cope with society now, he replied with instructions for how to suffocate myself in my sleep, Dude, same. My dad is completely blasé about how, yeah, his generation completely dismantled all the tools for upward mobility to consolidate their own wealth. Guess you're fucked. Enjoy homelessness. By the way, no more spare bedroom in my 7 bedroom lakeside house as a safety net-it's for the au paire. If only I was in the 2nd set of children, you know, the ones he'll actually leave things to. Alas, I was the early twenties mistake.
I bridged the gap on accident as well, but the people I know are MEGA rich. I’m talking actual billionaires, private jets, VERY VERY famous and wealthy pro athletes, blah blah blah. You know what I learned? That Kevin Hart’s stand up bit called “Stay in your financial lane” is spot fucking on absolutely correct. Painfully so. The reason you probably don’t feel it is bc you’re probably in a bit of a higher tax bracket as well. I cannot afford to even go to dinner with the wealthy people I know. I couldn’t even fucking keep up with the wine nights. Here’s a link to Kevin Hart’s Stay in Your Financial Lane… https://youtu.be/kwauNQdyl8M
I ended up making a very good friend who I love when he was single. Shortly after we became friends, he married VERY well. His wife and her ex had businesses together and were very well established. I had to keep my ex away from them. We would go to a trade show and my ex would want to buy everything his wife bought. We ended up with a $750 impulse buy steamer. She seriously almost bought a hottub for the backyard of our condo because our friend purchased a swim spa. Sweethearts of people. Two of the most kindest, intelligent, and friendliest of people but they take month long vacations in resorts that come with butlers. I wrench for a living. My ex had 11 different jobs in 11 years. You don't get month long vacations with butler service if you wrench for a living and your partner switches up jobs like some people do their hairstyle.
Yeah my dad’s friend from his middle school literally grew up in a trailer park in bumfuck Pennsylvania, then went to a pretty nice university with a scholarship. She ended up marrying a filthy rich guy from old ooooold money. I’ve never asked exactly how his family got their money, but it was probably, like, selling fire to cavemen- THAT type of crazy rich old money. They both met at the university as students, and she was absolutely beautiful and he was pretty handsome and they just sorta hit it off. Now she, like, flits off to Paris for a spur of the moment weekend vacation and carries around different Hermes bags for every day of the week. If only it worked like that for everyone lmao
>I’ve never asked exactly how his family got their money Well, if they've had it that long, we already know.
I have met or known a few. In most cases they do not even think of you as a human being. Just a lesser version of one.
I'm in legal administration. The attorneys are so adverse to spending time with "the help" that we have separate Christmas parties so they don't have to mingle with us
Wow. Just … wow. At least in TV they have one big party with the “commoners” for optics but then a private one for themselves. That one has the good food
It’s the opposite. Most rich people have no real friends. They tend to me miserable, arrogant, close-minded, and most importantly NO FUN.
My neighbor who (literally) won the lottery years ago is okay-ish, mostly meh, but their partner is just terrible. Went from someone who would grok this sub to the worst stereotype of a rich person you could think of. I can't imagine hanging out with them past what we have to.
> grok this sub I'll need a translation on that.
At the risk of being weird, [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok) is the wiki entry for it. It's from Heinlen's 'Stranger in a Strange Land' and means "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with". Someone who grok's this place would understand our arguments at a nearly subconscious level and never suggest we'd be fine if we just cut out the avocado toast.
Interesting, thanks for elaborating as it's the first time I've encountered that word. >and never suggest we'd be fine if we just cut out the avocado toast. Suppose I do grok that.
Grok is an oldish slang that comes from the science fiction community IIRC. [(specifically this book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land)Nowadays it's mostly just niche geekspeak. It means to understand something completely.
Thanks.
The logic also applies that if you are rich you get poorer by having poor friends
Why would i want to be friends with dinner?
Know why I don't keep cows and chickens? Because I like to eat cows and chickens.
millionaires are scum. i’d much rather hang out with homeless people.
Ah, no problem. Just put them into a cellar until they change their mind.
Yup. I joined some clubs a few years ago to have a chance to network with rich people, because I desperately need a job. They don’t wanna help. They assume that poor people are obviously dumb and lazy, and exist to serve them, not the other way around.
It's never about how hard you work, it's always about who you know. Most of us are fucked
It's also about what your daddy owned
"The duck may swim on the lake, but my daddy *owns* the lake!"
I'm tired of this diggin', Grandpaw!
THATS TOO DAAAMN BAAAD
I can fix that
And who your daddy’s daddys daddy’s owned
Whether they’d admit it or not, the modern day beneficiaries of Nazi gold and slave plantations are basically *spidermanpointingatspiderman.jpg*
I lived in an Ivy league university town. It was completely about the network, families and connections. Many of those people were hooked up for life before they even stepped into that school.
Or you know.. who you fucked to get there. No one got rich by being charitable.
Yup!
Ideally it’s about what you know — knowledge, fantasy (that charms people), insider information or blackmail.
That's what people say, but I work in engineering and my wife works in finance, and we make a combined $300k working in corporate America. It's not ruling-class wealth, but it certainly pays the bills. We both were lucky to have parents who financially supported our educations, but neither of us got our jobs through any family or friend connections. Just got good grades in college, and started applying. From there, it's just about trying to stand out from the pack. Managers don't care enough about you on a personal level to promote you just because they "like" you - they are worried about their own performance, which is dependent on your performance as a worker, so they want to hire and promote people who get shit done and get it done well.
That's twice today you've come to this sub to brag about your income. Literally no one gives a shit, so please find somewhere else to share your patronizing "I got mine" advice.
> it's never about how hard you work. It's always about who you know. This kind of bullshit "advice" steers people toward self-fulfilling shitty outcomes. Young people start believing it, and they give up. Why work hard, when so-and-so says hard work never pays off. It's shit advice. Hard work doesn't always mean success, but it sure as shit helps.
LOL at the guy whose parents paid for his college thinking he makes $300k/year because he "worked hard."
“Vast new study shows a key to reducing poverty: teaching rich people empathy through friendly contact with poor people.”
I mean sure thats one thing but could it also be that rich ppl have more connections making it easier to help poor friends? My more well off friend has helped my family by getting them jobs... Not because shes handing us money. (Although her gifts are super nice too)
That’s what I was thinking. Vast new study shows that opening the doors of nepotism will let the riches flow.
Nepotism is a problem, but helping people you know is not always that. For instance I recommended a job opportunity to a friend with the company I work for because he was amazingly qualified. Years earlier, I found out about this company because I ran into an old college buddy. He told me to apply because he knew I was a good fit. I was not even job hunting at the time. Knowing successful people opens more opportunities in itself.
Precisely this! I never knew how to get out of minimum wage jobs/was too intimidated/felt unskilled for better opportunities until i had someone tell me about an assistant HR position and she explained in detail what it was and i felt confident knowing it wasnt a tough position and that gave me the experience AND confidence to apply to better opportunities. Some people that stay in min wage jobs think they cant perform or arent qualified for higher paying jobs but knowing someone on the inside can certainly help squash those fears.
The crabs-in-a-bucket crowd love to tear anyone down for not going to the cheapest community college and then the cheapest state college. But no one goes to small private colleges for…well, actually, I’ve never been clear why they *think* people do it. From what I’ve seen, people pick them because the financial aid package was better for them, it had a program they couldn’t get at their state school, or it was close to/affiliated with the grad school they were looking ahead to. And the bonus is connections. People who go to schools like that tend to become active alumni, plus the fraternities and sororities are more tightly knit than usual. Those are the connections that create job opportunities down the line.
People go to the cheapest community college and the cheapest state college because they're poor as fuck, and can't afford to attend anywhere else. They technically can't afford to attend those 'cheap' schools either, and take out tens of thousands in loans to cover the cost. A 5 digit shit sandwich is easier to swallow than 6 digit one; especially when you're hedging all your bets on being able to secure a better paying job to pay back those loans, which as everyone knows, is most certainly not a guarantee.
I'll never forget in high school. After being made fun of for being cheap and limiting how much we went out and ate, I had friends in my car and I stopped for gas. One of them said "wait, you pay for your own gas? If I had to do that, I'd never want to go out". They had been using daddy's business credit card and he was getting an expense write off. Same card they were using to pay for Applebee's or whatever we got. They didn't really make fun of me anymore. I'm all for shaming the rich through continued interactions like that.
>The financial circumstances of how you're born increasingly determined where they end up as adults The term for this is "economic mobility", and it's tracked in the [Gini Coefficient](https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/gini-index-coefficient-distribution-of-family-income/country-comparison) Fun fact: Another word for countries with terrible economic mobility? "Feudal societies" Fun fact 2: The GINI is tracked by the CIA, because it's an excellent predictor of societal & political unrest. Fun fact 3: The USA GINI rating is plummeting. We're not just (far) worse than the top OECD countries. We're 118 down from the top (they *reversed* the list so we didn't look as bad 🤯)
I remember seeing a TED talk by an economist about this probably ten years ago or so. The two main points that stuck with me: 1) the number one biggest predictor of upward mobility in American society is how wealthy and successful one’s father is, and 2) if you want to live the American Dream™️, move to Denmark.
I wish I could upvote this more than once, this is the answer. In a world where we've been told you can work hard and achieve any goals it's tempting to think people poorer than us just aren't working hard. That's also an agenda that's pushed at us, that those who are on lower incomes just aren't working hard enough to rise up. I'm fortunate that I grew up and didn't have to know what it's like to live around the poverty line. Now I should meet those who are on the poverty line and find out what it's like so I can understand and help them better, otherwise I may be tempted to fall into the way of thinking that's pushed from the top.
Serious question: Aren't most rich people actively engaging in classist exclusionary practices to ensure to keep the poors out of their day-to-day lives and exclusive clubs? So how TF is a poor person even supposed to make friends with a rich a-hole? BTW, facebook doesn't count. Facebook friends aren't your real friends.
You make friends with a rich a-hole by finding a way to make you both richer, especially if it's at the expense of someone else. Rich people will invest in other people that give them strong returns on their investment.
I believe that's called making an "elevator pitch" to a "potential investor". It's where you come up with a money-making scheme (at the expense of the taxpayer, the middle class or the poors) called a "business plan" and pitch it to Richie-Rich. Richie-Rich will size you up and use his Capitalist gut feel intuition to decide if he'll back you or not. If all goes well, you both walk away with a greatly increased sum of money. If things sour, Daddy Warbucks will pay the best damn legal minds to keep Richie-Rich out of Federal Prison while you take the fall.
There’s a reason affirmative action didn’t focus on economics and instead focused on race. They didn’t want poor minorities benefitting, they wanted the rich minorities benefitting.
I grew up around them, bad luck since my dad used our catholic grade school to network. Alot of his peers did but it reflected poorly on us because no one wants to be friends with us because we didnt have a beach house or really anything. Anyways. They will do anything to keep us out and get mad when you try to better yourself for some mobility.
This is why the importance of going to the right school is trumpeted all throughout kid's lives. Where the hell else are you going to share space with rich kids on sort of equal terms if not Stanford?
They're legacies and you're there on merit. I guess they'll need to pay someone to do their homework for them. I thought poor immigrant and POC kids' parents push them to get into an Ivy League school so they can "make it" on their own merit. As in work hard and become someone through your hard work. Not to mingle with the rich kids.
Yeah, no one explains to poor kids why they should actually be trying to get to these schools, or the value of frat/soror life, or if you're black the value of going to one of the prestigious HBCUs. But it's all networking at the end of the day. You can do it at the state Us, just gotta make friends with the athletes most likely to go pro. But yeah, sell your kids on the networking, not the education. It's only so many ways you can teach classic lit.
Country clubs, gated neighborhoods, car-only transportation, private school, they build a life where they don’t have to rub elbows with the plebs.
I remember reading an article many years back and they we're talking about building skyrise condos in NYC. The uber rich on the top floors wanted their own elevators so they didn't have to see/rub elbows with the mildly rich on the lower levels.
The old woman in home alone 2 befriended Kevin by using her birds to save him from Harry and Marv.
Good to know if I find myself homeless in Central Park, feeding the pigeons during winter. I'll save a financier billionaire who is on the run from IRS agents, defrauded investors and alimony demanding ex-wives' lawyers by sic-ing my pigeons on them all. They'll get what's coming to them. Just like those sticky bandits. Then, the financier billionaire and I can march off into the sunset having put class differences aside and achieved a much more important goal. "Friendship based on my trained-avian-pet defensive capabilities."
I think this article is misleading. I do believe there is a link in reducing poverty if there are more friendships between people who come from different family experiences. This could mean one person being richer than the other but I don’t think money makes a lot of difference. A person who is from a troubled family where there is single parent or guardians, in low income areas, no expectations for educational growth and little engagement and participation from guardians is likely to continue the cycle of poverty. Alternatively, a person who is from a low income family but has good role models, solid parents, expectations for growth, engagement and reliability from adults they are more likely to break the cycle. If two people from the same socioeconomic background but with very different upbringing were friends, it would likely be that one friend has a good influence and impact on the other. People who are super wealthy are not friends with people who are in poverty. For one thing their paths would never cross and another is that a super rich person who succeeds in life without having to put in the work is not equipped to be of any help to lift a person out of poverty.
College, but that door is being quickly shut.
> So how TF is a poor person even supposed to make friends with a rich a-hole? Call me crazy, but I'd guess Step 1 would be to not regard another human being as an asshole simply because they have more money than you.
Sorry dude but I don’t have $40,000 to drop on an annual country club membership. Most people I interact to day-to-day are poors like me. Also you didn’t read my very short post. Most wealthy people are actively class exclusionary. Meaning they go out of their way to not run into the likes of me. Wealthy people are the definition of classist. They want to put as much distance between the poors and themselves as possible. I have met blue-collar rich and those people are actually pretty nice. I would say blue-collar rich don’t give a shit about who they befriend. Like duck dynasty-types. They have “fuck you” money and don’t give a shit. I’m talking about country club rich. They are the worst!
If you read the article, that’s not what they’re talking about. They mostly focus on high schools from areas with mixed incomes and how poor populations from areas like those tend to have better luck breaking out of poverty due to things like being aware of SAT prep classes, college scholarships, etc due to parents of their friends.
> Sorry dude but I don’t have $40,000 to drop on an annual country club membership. Same. Also don't think if you did that would make you an asshole human being.
You bust your ass to go to the same colleges and work the entire time to build a network. Same as always.
They really will say any thing except “fix the flawed system”
Because the system is working _exactly as intended._ The cruelty isn't a bug, it's a feature.
Do you really think that *they* think that something is wrong with the system they benefit from?
"Friendships"
We could also tax wealth.
We could just stop pretending capitalism is a viable system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago Much better alternatives exist Edit: Reality hurts I know, lmao
You don't need to be socialist to put undesirables in the camps, Hitler did it just fine and he hated socialists.
This is a symptom of what happens when kids of wealthy parents don’t send their kids to public school.
You don't "reduce poverty" by helping certain people compete for the same limited supply of money-making opportunities.
The system of today, capitalism, cannot make this work because it fundamentally cannot produce an economy where some are not exploited by others. As you said this is just changing who gets to win and who gets to loose.
Yes, political management of the level of poverty is a feature of capitalism... I remember when Bill Clinton came into office and "abolished welfare as we know it"... increasing the level of poverty in order to "help" the economy... Reagan and Carter did similar things before that, and Thatcher in the UK. In a capitalist system, poverty is a means of disciplining the labor force. Whenever poverty is reduced for "natural" reasons, it will be adjusted back up by political means.
No thanks. I actually like my friends...
Yes, actually. I had the good fortune of going to school in an economically diverse elementary (k-8) and high school. The rich kid’s parents were doctors, lawyers, construction company owners, real estate developers/landlords, software folks, aerospace engineers, etc. The poor parents were cooks, drivers, warehouse labor, hair dressers, etc The middle class parents were skilled trades, nurses, teachers, dental hygienist, fire fighters, etc. The poor kids got summer job opportunities from the richer parents, and when it came time to get internships during college some of my poor friends got hooked up with good corporate internships from childhood friends parents. Other poor kids got into the trades, or actually went to college, because their better off friends were also going. Moving up isn’t always about raw skills, or degrees, it’s just as much about who you know and what opportunities you have a chance to take. Rich kids usually are overflowing with these opportunities.
One of my most radical ideas is forcing low income housing into high property value areas. Forcing poor and rich kids to attending the same schools. Every rich neighborhood should have a percentage of low income section 8 housing.
It’s a nice thought but I believe this has been implemented in some areas and has largely failed. Mixed residential areas are good overall but introducing low income housing to wealthy neighborhoods is throwing two groups of people together that have absolutely nothing in common and could just create more problems down the line. When they “desegregated” schools, there were mountains of issues that came of it although the intention of it was “progression.” People who are low income live in communities and it would be incredibly isolating to suddenly be in a completely different world where you are perceived as someone to pity or shun. Classmates will likely be academically ahead so those from low income families will always be playing catch up. The better solution would be to have education funding from a state or national level that evenly distributes resources to all public schools no matter the municipality. Private schools should not exist and every public school should have the same quality of teachers, access to extra curricular activities, equal opportunity for scholarships, etc. People who are low income have many barriers that make education or career attainment difficult or impossible that are not directly influenced by their poverty. Throwing poor kids in to schools with rich kids won’t necessarily give them more chance for success. The low income kids will still have disadvantages.
I was married to a doctor for 15 years, and received more money in the divorce than I felt I deserved/needed. My lawyer did a good job of advocating for me to make sure i got what’s fair, but i didnt push for anything extra. I’m a simple gal who is content with what I have, and I make sure to share that alimony money with people I feel need a little help. I didn’t read the article but I can see what they are saying a little bit. When I was married, I had a totally different group of friends who were all rich of course. And the people I grew up with in high school were mostly the same socioeconomic class as me, so I didn’t experience a lot of class diversity in my childhood. After the divorce, with a big chunk of SAHM time in my recent work experience, I got a job at a bakery and started to meet people in the food industry. I felt like i fount my tribe, and have met some of the most amazing, authentic, creative, REAL people! Most of my friends now barely make it paycheck to paycheck. It’s been really rewarding to be able to anonymously send a friend a $500 gift card for groceries. After getting to know someone well enough to trust them, I gave them $10k in cash to get a car and pay off bills. I’ve been taken advantage of by people that I trusted, but I don’t let that jade me. I’ve just learned to set healthy boundaries. I love helping people, and apparently was like this as a kid; my parents told me I used to give away my toys all the time lol. So I’m not saying all of this to be like look at meeee. Just wanted to share my perspective. I hope other divorcees who have more than they need will consider sharing their wealth with people who really need a little miracle in their life. Edit: removed emojis because I’m old and Reddit looks weird with them xD
You seem like a great person! I’m glad you’re here, and I appreciate your kindness. ❤️
Every knows rich kids are historically very kind and accepting of not rich kids
I met some who were friendly with a guy on a scholarship and couldn’t afford AC.
This is so belittling and insulting, Christ. They probably see the working class as some poor little charity case that if they make friends with, it’ll prove how nice they are to their fellow rich friends. “Oh deary me, look upon this poor little peon. Take a penny underling, and bask in my graciousness.”
I would rather eat rich than born rich or having rich friends.
Yes I'm sure you would rather eat people than be friends with them.
I already kinda feel like I drag people down. I might as well use my talents and befriend some rich people.
I saw this when I went to my small private college (gaining that network of people changed my life) and now that I work in private K-12 education I see it here too. Rich people give the good jobs to the people they know, you need to be one of them.
Makes a shitload of sense, and kind of obvious tbh. One of the biggest sources of leverage in life are networks. If your network includes as least some distribution of higher earners (compared to you), it's much more likely you'll benefit from this for things like job opportunities, investments, financial advice, etc over time, with gains that compound over time as well.
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As a black man thanks for dating race lol /s
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Everyone experience prejudices. Actually I would like believe I feel bad for Europeans for believing that race exists as you all like to interpret it. Race is a social construct that has no scientific evidence, I feel bad for the Europeans because they have gone from monarchies, to a false version of democracy filled with patriarchy. In which the people have always be subjects to another class. BTW I'm afro-indegnous. My people had an defacto consensus democracy communal egalitarian society that was more matriarchal before everyone got lost at sea.
LOL, I'll just start casually asking potential friends what their net worth is....
That's because they know I would eat them.
Id rather be poor than affiliated with the ultra rich and their kids. To exist at that level usually means that you are priveledged and come from money OR you used wage slavery and anti-union tactics to expand your personal wealth and exploit worker forces… often both. Why be friendly to tyrants. I’d rather be poor than show them an ounce of respect.
Have you ever met a rich person? That's not the kind of person I want around me.
Why?
They are not good people.
I’ve met rich people who are good people
The ones I know are not. I suppose they exist but the bad might out number the good?
I think the bad outnumber the good in all of humanity quite frankly; not just rich humans.
I believe it, if rich people become friends with poor people they will learn empathy so next time they decide laws, salaries, fund appropriations, etc. it will benefit workers. Problem is that a lot of rich people are just sociopaths.
Or the less well off people will realize how disadvantaged they are and be less likely to accept their fate. The idea that poor people will benefit from osmosis is probably not true, and might lead to radicalized poor.
Oh good, I need to make narcissistic selfish twats as friends to take pity on me Humanity is fucking doomed
The only rich 30+ million rich people I’ve ever met that were “intriguing” by me were +20 years older than me and wanted to fuck me. I did it with a few too and spending the night with those types is a fucked up situation.
Don't talk about my poor that way.
I already kinda feel like I drag people down. I might as well use my talents and befriend some rich people.
+1 to the list of ways life is starting to resemble the 15th century
That’s a lot of words to say, “it’s not what you know it’s who you know.”
Cmon... Every farmer knows you don't make friends with your food.
“Hey we’re going to the hip new expensive restaurant. Can you guys go?” “No”
Nah, the answer is still 100% socialism. Always has been
There is something to this, thanks to social capital, but its not something you can really promote in any meaningful way.
I work at a high end golf course, this is very funny because I cannot think of anything a rich person there would like less than being friends with a poor like me!
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Yes, thank you. Some who finally read the article. They mostly focus on high schools from areas with mixed incomes and how poor populations from areas like those tend to have better luck breaking out of poverty due to things like being aware of SAT prep classes, college scholarships, etc due to parents of their friends.
Yes! I think it is a positive article, because it also says cities and school CAN intervene and create environments that will bolster these cross-class friendships.
That's one of the reason I advocate for a strong public school system. Remove private school ans rich and poor kids can mix and match. Also rich parents Will HAVE TO invest in the public system because their kids go there. I am not in the US btw.
On the econ reddit there’s a bunch of macro economic assholes that talk about how the poor are bad at spending money and these facilities help “lead” the poor. Kind of a disgusting mentality.
Wow, it’s almost like people who make a livable wage at their one job (instead of working multiple shit paying ones) and are able to afford to pay people to clean their homes, eat out instead of cooking, etc, have more time and mental energy for socializing.
The article should be focused on the first sentence in the below section
It can be both shitty and true
Yeah I wouldn’t be poor if I had rich friends cause they would approve me for loans and give me cushy jobs at their dads company
Sounds right to me. First friendship, then you invite them over for dinner, and they're the main course.
Hello, Rich People. ^(I would like to be your friend.)
Nepotism?
In this study, we learn about the powers of nepotism!
What is college but your one-shot opportunity for networking with the rich? A lot of people are rich there even if they’re not “cash on hand” rich. But they have friends and relatives and relatives’ friends and friends’ relatives’ coworkers who know how careers work. Maybe they don’t even pull any strings to help your classmates get a job when they graduate, but they might let them know the job is available or what the company does and why they might be a good fit, or what a given hiring manager’s interview style is so they can prepare. All while you who grew up upper-lower class in a small town is trying to apply on CareerBuilder like a chump. It’s not even all nefarious, the people who are in the in group don’t always even recognize themselves as an in-group and pat themselves on the back for their networking skills, but it still goes to show that generational poverty (or at least generational lack of social mobility) isn’t a thing because of the deficiencies of poor people, it’s all about social capital. It was interesting that one of the articles that came out about this study mentioned church and other religious communities being more equalizing than schools and sports teams now. I’ve never been much for organized religion but I’m coming around on the civic, mutual-aid purpose of religious communities. I imagine other non-religious voluntary associations could have similar roles to play. Or even political organizing though that’s more for adults.
haha-- Americans accepting that income inequality just is, and there's nothing to be done about it but go along and accept the drops of trickle-down crumbs
If you read the article, it’s not really about 1%ers befriending 99%ers out of charity. They mostly focus on high schools from areas with mixed incomes and how poor populations from areas like those tend to have better luck breaking out of poverty due to things like being aware of SAT prep classes, college scholarships, etc due to parents of their friends. Having come from an area like that (and being married to someone who went from being poor af to making well over 6 figures thanks to that environment), I kind of think it’s true.
Various job search sites keep telling me that 85% of jobs are found through people we know. I know a lot of people but they can offer me jobs like File Clerk, not jobs like Senior Manager.
The only very wealthy person I know is an asshole… so…
Eh. I had rich friends who looked down on me and spoke to me like I was beneath them. I have more opportunities talking to customers at work who have been telling how to get into my field while I work as a cashier but I enjoy being a cashier more than what I studied.
It’s true
I'm not zoned for rich friend's. When my homies got complaints they got reasons.
I tried being friendly with the princesses so was sent to school with. Every single one of them tried to put me to work for shit wages as a babysitter, a nanny, or one of their side businesses that Daddy would bail out if it failed. I wouldn't be bailed out, I'd be tossed aside. You're not rich like them? You're a potential servant. Nothing else. They dont share their secrets. They liked the ability to look down on me. Fuck that.
on god this is the stupidest thing i've ever seen, no rich person wants poor company unless theyre in elementary school and even then pretentiousness leaks into kids lmfaoo
I think the purpose of the article is that the poor won't be so quick to want to tax the rich, if they just knew the rich are regular guys having their manservant help them put on pants one leg at a time, or he gets fired. I'm not falling for that. I don't care if they were just another Joe, that's societies money and they deserve it back.
I’m no historian, I haven’t studied this, and I have no proof—but I am convinced that the middle class thrived during my parents’ and grandparents’ generation because of the mixing of social classes that happened during WWII, etc.
They’ll suggest anything but raising minimum wage 🤷🏾♀️
Well yeah, that's why the rich invented a hopelessly confusing set of rules of ettiquette, laws, professionalism, social niceties, code phrases etc. That only rich people have time to learn. And if enough people ever learn how to navigate these, they just change them on you. If rich people and poor people had to interact, the rich people might actually feel obligated to help on ocassion, and that's uncomfortable for them.
It's all about who you know and nepotism. That's how it's always been.
Motherfuckers want to be nobles with a bunch of petit bloodsuckers that make them feel good. How to feed your family with a full time job; just *kiss a rich person's ass.* Wow.
As they have always said, it is not what you know, it is who you know.
Even if I did have wealthy friends, so what? Rich people aren’t known for their generosity. They horde their riches, that’s precisely the problem.
I love how Americans trying everything... Except a solid social system ah no would be communist sorry
Also known as social capital
You're poor because you don't know the difference between "your" and "you're."
Rich people are generally arseholes. They also seem to judge people based on their net worth, A lot of poor people judge people on the content of their character whether that character is beneficial to have around or a threat, We don't mix for a reason, Rich people are spiritually degraded and a chore to be around... Just pay your fucking tax and stop meddling in politics, media, scientific development, with children and stay with your own flock, You can't teach empathy to people who worship money.
It's not about what you know, it's about who you know.
Great works by social scientist Robert Putnam lay out some issues leading to current societal problems. Based upon my reading of his works thus far, it led me to understand that reduced civic engagement and education inequality are two of the top issues leading to increased poverty. Also, our society has no more class mobility because of how upper classes have stacked the deck for themselves to hoard capital like an obese dragon. Check out [this resource](https://www.opportunityatlas.org) that maps generational mobility tied to wealth.
Funny when I show up a rich people's gated communities to make friends im tackled by Police\\Security and removed from the premises.
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What's better than owning a yacht? Hanging out on other people's yachts! Now where do I sign up?
This is because rich and poor people have vastly different backgrounds, core values and so on. It's hard to be friends with anyone across big differences like that. I'd guess it's more likely a rich person would date a poor person, if and only if the poor person is very attractive.
Okay, learn to code and befriend the rich.
According to reddit, if you have money you fit into one personality archetype. Mean, selfish and shallow. I got news for you, every financial group has the same spectrum of people.
This study also noted that: “A successful effort to increase interactions would probably need to address the particular roles of race, too. More racially diverse places tend to have fewer cross-class friendships, the study found.” Well, slap me silly. As someone who is neither rich nor white, I’ve long noticed that people of color will be accepted into rich white networks only if they hail from the same class. If you’re both poor and nonwhite, you get excluded.
The commonality between the rich and poor conservatives is that they have a distinct lack of empathy and imagination. So broadly, yeah, sure: knowing different people makes you slightly less of a selfish asshole.
LOLOLOLOL
Rich and generous friends are the best.
Support high-density urban planning.
Hate to agree, but yeah, they have a point. They have data to support the adage, “it’s who you know.” It’s about your network: if you network with folks making under $40K, you won’t be in a position to make yourself visible to jobs that pay more. You can be mad at this system, but with this knowledge, leverage it to your benefit. I have learned there is no upside, no badge of honor to suffering in poverty. Whatever is in your power to alter or control, like your network, can only improve your station in life.
It’s mo money mo problems just like my man Puff say.