You Make Your Own Luck
David Frum has a really interesting take on the “you didn’t build that” comments by President Obama and I think he touches on the point that really irks a lot of people (his comments certainly bothered me). Frum says:
“(Frum): Obama combines two ideas: the familiar and broadly acceptable idea in Elzabeth Warren’s speech—and a second, much more destabilizing idea.
(Obama): ‘I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something—there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.’
(Frum): Obama’s second idea is that success is to a great extent random, a matter of luck. You think you succeeded because you were smart or hard-working? Listen—a lot of smart and hard-working people don’t succeed.”
This perspective raises an interesting point. To what extent does luck or chance play a role in someone’s success? Obviously, it’s an important factor. Where you’re born and what kind of environment you’re born into can give someone an enormous head start on the road to success. You can’t control that. But I’m also not a big fan of the idea that we’re all just wandering through life becoming victims or successes of the universe’s random outcomes.
While luck plays an important role in one’s success I think the idea that “you make your own luck” is a far more dominant force in determining outcomes. That is, you can control your own outcomes to a large degree. Yes, there are plenty of people out there who work hard. But working hard doesn’t mean you’re working better. And that’s really what successful entrepreneurs and people who build things end up doing – they end up not only working hard, but working better. And they supply goods and services that are in greater demand (commanding greater financial rewards) because their products are better, not just the result of a lot of work. More importantly, this isn’t merely a random outcome. It might be on some occasions, but more often than not it is due to a superior idea or a superior approach.
I’m a big fan of the idea that you get out of things what you’re willing to put in. If you’re a jerk to people you will be treated like a jerk. If you give much to society you will get much back (these are the best kinds of capitalists). But this isn’t just about effort or luck or sitting in the office thinking that working 80 hour weeks will get you to the top of the food chain. It’s about understanding that you make your own luck through the way you calculate risks, the way you plan your approach to generating output and the way you work better. Sure, there’s an element of luck in everything we do, but we are not just floating through our lives randomly becoming victims or successes of things we can’t control. To a large degree, we determine the outcomes of our lives. We determine what we build and how we build it.
Cullen Roche
Mr. Roche is the Founder of Orcam Financial Group, LLC. Orcam is a financial services firm offering research, private advisory, institutional consulting and educational services.
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105 Comments
Thanks Cullen.
As well he should. “Know your audience” is kind of a central tenet of public speaking. We Americans are incredibly individualistic, and any suggestion that our personal efforts or endeavors need to be taken with a grain of salt is going to rankle most of us. I get where he’s coming from, but as a politician, it’s an incredibly stupid thing to discuss openly.
Was replying to FrankH
What staggers me as a non-American is the hornet’s nest this whole thing has stirred up. Even after countless visits, I’m constantly taken aback by the fiercely individualistic streak which fires so many Americans.
Those who actually watched the speech and interpreted it as I did – as a simple statement of the blindingly obvious (your business was built in part on the efforts, taxes and inspiration of others) – are dumbfounded by others who saw the exact same footage and interpreted it as an all-out attack on entrepeneurs, freedom and the American way.
Surely these reactions say far more about about each individual viewer’s values than Obama’s – a bit like one of those classic double images which can be seen in one of two ways depending on your perception & bias.
Young woman…or old hag?
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/69390057/cartoon%20young%20lady%20and%20old%20hag.gif
A socialist insult to hard-working American entrepeneurs…or a statement of the bleedin’ obvious??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192oEC5TX_Q
What exactly was it that Obama felt compelled to say the “bleedin’ obvious”?
Gotta agree with you, watching US politics I always get the feeling that people are overreacting to everything. Every week there is a new artificial controversy brought on by misinterpretations of someones statements, some alleged victim group yelling up or people just being plain stupid. It’s rather entertaining, but it’s also frightening to see how a country can be so divided on many issues. Although I would like to see a more broader debate on some things here in Europe, German politics is especially boring as you only have 5 different flavors of social democrats.
Right on. The real issue is that we all have preconceived ideas that are very resistant to change. We almost never change what we believe based on argument. If we can’t compromise it leads to war.
That’s an excelletn point, and one that I think Cullen touched on in previous posts/comments- Even if you can find reasoning in that speach it at least means it was a terribly written speach.
Its one of those things that will be off putting to independents.
I doubt Obama would disagree with what you’ve written here. I just think it was a poorly written speech. I am sure he regrets the whole thing.
I really wonder how much he believes this though. He basically said your hard work doesn’t translate into better results. He said lots of people work hard and don’t get the results. Which, as Frum said, implies that Obama thinks it’s just random luck.
Hard work really doesn’t always translate into better results, at least not the millionaire-next-door type of results. I’ve known some workaholic engineers who gave everything to their company, but didn’t get paid commensurately with their output. And then in their 50s, their wives leave them and they end up quite a bit broker after they have to short-sell their house.
Of course, I think they were complete idiots for not asking for more money or for starting their own businesses, and even bigger idiots for neglecting their marriages.
Their hard work got them an okay life, not a great life, because for all their smarts, they weren’t wise.
Obama knew exactly what he was saying. He was throwing red meat to his base while trying to touch a nerve of ‘the rich’.
Was it even a prepared speech? I think it was mostly off the top of his head, and in either case I think it clearly was not perceived as he intended.
Bell beat Grant (and quite a few others) to the patent office by a whisker. The phone was *going* to get invented in that window of time, because scientific understanding had reached a level in which it could be invented, and there was clearly a demand.
Better for Obama to simply have repeated that, “We all stand on the shoulders of others.” Of that, there can be little doubt. This applies to the continuous accretion of knowledge, and to the continuous accretion of public goods, one of which is knowledge itself.
As I said before, Obama was making a strawman argument. NO ONE was arguing that there shouldn’t be any roads or bridges or that businesses owners didn’t benefit from that, but they did pay for it just like everyone else (assuming federal income taxes paid for it, otherwise it was just the 51% who ACTUALLY PAY federal income tax and then in that case IT WASN’T EVERYONE ELSE).
Workers would pay more taxes if they were paid more. Workers are still necessary.
The thing that really annoyed me about the Obama speech was that he mentioned all these public works built back in the 1900′s when the top marginal tax rate was 70-90%. Do you know who built all those roads? Do you know who pays the taxes that fund most of the things that “average americans” benefit from? THE RICH DO. The top 1% pay 50% of the federal income tax. It’s all a redistribution of wealth and here he comes saying we don’t pay enough. I’ve made a lot of money in my life and I have no problem paying more than most other other people. I understand that someone making $35,000 is hurt far more paying 20% than I am paying 35% or more. But don’t come back and tell me I didn’t pay for that or I didn’t built that. Because my tax dollars sure as hell did pay for that. The tax dollars of the rich are what build most of the things that government decides to spend money on this country.
His whole speech was wrong. The whole thing.
Look at the distribution of wealth pre 1980, before supply side economics, as opposed to today before you start beating your chest about how much you ‘built.’
I’d go start a business- or make alot of money before you tell someone who’s been around along time paying his taxes to stop beating his chest. Very Precocious
to tell an older American Citizen what you jus wrote. Pointing him to an economic pre 1980 which he probaly lived through. One you just read about.
I’ve done both and I don’t care one bit for what Obama said or what others speculate on what he meant. I think Obama is a great speaker.
I get a vote- Now I’m the worlds worse voter and most succesful. Everyone I vote for wins and everyone I vote for ends up doing exactly what I hoped they wouldn’t.
His comment that “top 1% pay 50% of federal income taxes” irked me because it is misleading. Benefits were directed to the top with the assumption they would trickle down. While the middle class has seen cuts in services and benefits. So it really should be no surprise that in 1980 the top 1% accounted for 19.5% of all federal income taxes whereas today they account for 36.73% (notice the discrepancy between his data and my data, which comes from the very conservative Heritage Foundation btw). You can make the comment the 1%, relative to the rest of society, pays a disproportionate amount in taxes to the government and be correct, but it ignores a lot that led up to that data. Interestingly enough I agree with his conclusion, the speech was terrible and I understand how many people could take offense to it.
I’d rather have a conversation about increasing social mobility, improving the productive capacities of our society, supporting R&D, and creating a culture that encourages entrepreneurs to take risk, rather than get caught up in the messy arguments about who pays how much taxes, but that is just me.
Also just because someone is older does not mean they have a monopoly on reality, but if you have a better explanation of reality I’m eager to listen (this is not facetious, rather my thinking is mailable and I’m open to different thoughts and ideas.)
In California can you please help me understand the current shortfall in the budget. Why are services being cut in California? Taxes not high enough?
After existing entitlements what is left over to invest in R&D, and social mobility? More taxes? Is that the solution? Ahh social mobility… Sounds great. If you tax one persons earning.. Renderting them less mobile but another more.. is it really considered social mobility. Doesn’t that just net out after you’ve paid the govt. bureaucrats facilitating this mobile program?
How does taxing risk takers encourage taking risk?
Malleable and open? Sounds good on paper… Let’s see.
I keep wondering if the USA basketball team was hugging Michele Obama or if they just wanted to ask her if their CPA was right about the amount he told them they’d pay in taxes in 2013 if the tax cuts Arn’t extended. I think they may have been lobbying during the Olympics. Is that legal?
I never said anything about California, nor did I say anything about raising taxes or having a government run ‘social mobility’ program but thanks for putting a bunch of words in my mouth.
Part of the problem is corporations paying less in taxes than individuals. Google headquartered in California had effective tax rate in lower single digits.
Here is how they become “Double Irish”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/28/business/Double-Irish-With-A-Dutch-Sandwich.html
Love that quote!!
“Everyone I vote for wins and everyone I vote for ends up doing exactly what I hoped they wouldn’t”
If you are a regular visitor on this site, you should know that taxes do not fund spending.
Curious, this isn’t an MMT blog and hasn’t been for well over 8 months now. We created Monetary Realism because we had serious disagreements with MMT’s operational descriptions. We have maintained the MMT view that govt can’t “run out of money”, but we’ve eliminated the MMT metaphors including this idea that the govt doesn’t need to procure funds for spending.
See here: http://pragcap.com/understanding-modern-monetary-system and here: http://pragcap.com/how-is-mr-different-from-mmt
Howz Life Cullen?
Been a while since I said hello to my old friend.
I’ve been well. I see you went on a nice vacation. I hope it treated you well. Certainly deserved. I’ll take mine one of these years.
CL-
I think he gets that. then the question he should ask you is….then why is Obama running adds to balance the budget by raising taxes on the middle class?
Silly right to have someone lead us who doesn’t know how the machine works. Nothing like giving the keys to the most dynamic machine called America and him not knowing how it works after 4 years???
VII, both Romney & Obama are deficit hawks… Romney especially since he’s for a balanced budget amendment & wants to cut spending (deficit spending) the most. Romney’s running as a fiscal conservative.
I’m not an Obama supporter but he’s NOT & his ads are NOT for raising taxes on those under$250k a year but he is for raising taxes back to Clinton levels for those over $250k a year (39% top rate)
Obama’s statement is true. Over the past 30 + years it has been more of the government either not inforcing laws or outright infusing cash through fiscal or monetary stimulus that has kept the economy afloat and top line revenue +. The bigger you are the wider the net you can cast to take advantage of the governments manipulation of the economy. For a business leader to run a large corporation into the ground these days takes a collosal idiot…and we’ve had plenty.
The general public = the middle class believes in the phrase work smarter not harder. They also believe that for those in finance that are successful working smarter means violating ethical norms and legal laws in order to accumulate more wealth.
Without the perverse behavior rewarded through deregulation and the refusal to prosecute white collar crime the classes are turning against one another. This should be of no suprise.
The government doesn’t “infuse” cash into the economy through fiscal policy. It takes bank money and recycles it. The only money the government infuses into the system is notes, coins and reserves. The rest is all on demand in the form of bank deposits that are issued to fund the consumption and production needs of the private sector. You need to read Cullen’s primer again.
By fiscal I meant the government creating federal projects or companies.
Of course, Romney said basically the same thing about Olympians:
“You Olympians, however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers encouraged your hopes … Coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities…”
Frankly, I think Obama is more right than wrong that luck plays a huge roll in success. And most of the luck stems from who your parents are.
Ask yourself, honestly, how you’d be doing right now with the exact same DNA but born and raised in the hood – father in jail, mother gone, raised by your grandmother. You seriously think you’d be driving your BMW to work and reading pragcap in you air conditioned office? Seriously?
That’s nonsense. Romney was talking about society. Obama was talking about government. Their speeches couldn’t be further apart.
Well, Obama said:
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges.”
Obama was talking about both the people around you and our system of government making success possble. This is “society” by any definition I can think of. And they are both indispensible. For isntance, take away the enforcement of law, public infrastructure, public education, etc., and you have….Somalia. Good luck with that.
You’re engaging in the same strawman argument as Obama. No one is arguing for anarchy. When he said “a greater teacher” he was most likely talking about a public school teacher and for the American system with roads and bridges, yes, society paid for that through taxes, but entrepreneurs are STILL part of a society.
Most people aren’t born into the “hood”. Almost 80% of Americans have the privilege of obtaining a high school level degree. They have access to tools and education that the rest of the world dreams of. And most of them choose not to work hard enough to get into college or pursue something more meaningful. I don’t know what more you can do than give a child 15 years of education before they just become “dropouts” from the whole system. Then they spend the rest of their lives wondering why no one ever gives them anything or why their government doesn’t provide more for them.
A high school level degree will barely get you a job at McDonald’s, upon which you can’t support yourself, let alone a family. And getting into college is only partly a function of working hard. You also need money…lots of it. Worse, a liberal arts degree won’t even do you much good in today’s economy – you need post graduate work as well…More money.
Even getting a job itself requires money. How can you get to work without a car (public transport is not always available)? What if you don’t even have the money to buy the required uniform? These are problems you don’t think about unless you’ve been in, or tried to help people, get out of poverty.
You seem to inhabit some fantasy world where everyone that’s rich is there because they worked hard for it and everyone that’s poor is just a lazy piece of shit. That’s just not reality. Sorry, but the world’s not fair.
Wow- alot too chew on.
Can’t do this or that with out money. No way one can succeed with out a graduate degree, heck can’t even get to not making money with out money because someone else can’t provid you with transportation. Whew-
Funny really when you think about it. Your probably typing your response on a device started by a guy who’s parents didn’t want him. Was raised by two parent who didn’t have college degrees and who himself dropped out of college. Who was collecting coke bottles sleeping on the floor to pay for food.
This guy created the greatest company our generation may ever see. AND- there were few people who helped him. The loving couple who took Steve Jobs in sure. But you’ll be hard pressed to find YOUR(skateman) thinking in Mr. Jobs, Mr. Gates or any great american business person.
Been a while since I posted here-
Hope everyone is doing well.
VII
Nice response and good to see your comments. It is hard some days but the old ” what you can conceive and believe can be achieved ” idea is still important to remember and this belief can be more important than an education.
On old school mate around here for example dropped out of high school learned the bricklayer trade and generally builds all the schools around here now!! True
Just to be clear, I don’t favor Obama & I think he’s a deficit-hawk who still believes in outdated gold-standard based economic theories similar to Chicago School/Austrian economists. His speech was poorly articulated when he could have just said, “society creates the infrastructure & environment of safe & stable marketplace, consumers with spending money, productive society, education, networked capital, etc that makes it all possible” instead of just being born into Somalia
o
r some 3rd World AFrican country where even if you’re born with the knowledge & IQ of Bill Gates/Steve Jobs, you wouldn’t have the resources or access to resources to build a billion-dollar company there”
VII, actually, Bill Gates, jr & Bill Gates, sr subscribe to the “if you see farther, it’s because you stood on the shoulders of giants” paraphrased from Isaac Newton –see link below
… that infrastructure built by society is what allows entrepeneurs the physical & finacal environment to succeed.. see link below –BTW, Steve Jobs said, “Good artists copy..Great artists STEAL” because he was proud that Apple stole GUI from Xerox & copied inventions built by others first.
MP3 players & Iphone music/combo phones were first invented by Asian companies back in the early 1990s! which Apple copied but made simple so that grandmas & teen girls could use it with 1-click.
In reference to Cullen’s post on “Fortune Cookie”, here’s my post from there:
“Good post… http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_inheritance.html
–above is a related PBS interview of Bill Gates, sr. views(shared with Bill Gates, jr) with Bill Moyers & billionaire Chuck Collins of Oscar Meyer inheritance whom all favor the estate tax because they feel it’s a way of giving back to US society because they feel it was the US public education, US gov paying/financing college educations/universities,
GI Bill,
finacial aid, etc that creates an educated workforce & consumer marketplace that makes it all possible,
US police/military that provides a stable secure marketplace,
&
US investment in technology
&
infrastructure, laws/patent systems,etc that makes it all possible instead of the luck or lack of luck had they been born in Somalia or Bangladesh, no matter how brilliant or hardworking they are, they would not have been able to amass their fortunes had they been born in Somalia, etc
Also, To create & innovate just requires ‘capital’—-it takea money to start businesses, fund reseach, development, marketing, hire staff, build factories… and
whether it’s money creation via private banks loans or gov deficit spending or from saved up money makes no difference.. it just takes money to fund it all so it’s ridiculous that some people want to cut money creation because they fear inflation
Because unless there’s a supply shock/monopoly, increased demand causes production rises to increase supply of products that offsets the increased demand/increased money supply
–cries of hyperinflation are from people who don’t realize that Weimar Germany’s inflation was mostly due to the 90% drop in production from 8+ months of strikes by most of Germany’s industrial/manufacturing/energy workers to protest war reparations
&
invasion by the French & Belgium (as well as Germany’s unwise choice to pay the striking workers to stay on strike & not produce as well as trying to buy foreign currency to pay war reparations) or Zimbabwe’s 30-57% drop in production in various sectors after Mugabe expelled all the whites, whom made up most of the educated workforce, managers, engineers, teachers, professors, factory supervisors, farmers, etc
For more examples, the founders of Intel were educated at places like public gov UCBerkeley in electrical engineering while using gov finacial & the GI Bill.. Bill Gates (who shares the views of his father) was given early computer education & computer at home (back when they were ultra expensive in the 1970s) by his lawyer dad who went to college on the GI Bill & his mom who was a public school teacher…
and the earlier computers were funded by gov spending (for census taking & computing artillery ballistic tables), not to mention that the internet was funded/invented by gov scientists
as were antibiotics (penicillin discovered by British gov doc/scientist Fleming at gov hospital/university & US gov funded it’s development with massive deficit spending in WW2 because the British conservative gov didn’t/wouldn’t fund it’s development so it sat on the shelf unused for 12 yrs since 1928 until WW2.)… so on & on, not just the technology but the health of the society (from polio vaccinations to antibiotics, etc)
to being unlucky enough to be born some 3rd World African country with malaria, no vaccines, no antibiotics,etc or in Somalia where’s there’s no network of education, infrastructure, or capital to fund his businesses
It’s the usual strawman argumentation that the President habitually engages in.
Luck is a factor in the “outliers” as in Bill Gates, Buffett, etc. but the average “Millionaire Next Door” which is the type of person that Cullen seems to be describing got there precisely because of personal characteristics like hard-work, self-responsibility, self-direction, passion, goals, long hours, risk-taking, and a whole lot of other specific characteristics that have been well-researched by academics. Just look at the Kaufmann Foundation for insights into what makes an entrepreneur different than everyone else who works for someone else.
I am mostly on Obama’s side in this debate and I am reminded of Harvey Golub’s op-ed on the Buffet tax: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html
One line summarized his viewpoint on why you shouldn’t tax his wealth: “After all, I did earn it.”
That’s where the trouble comes in. How do we know whether Golub earned his paycheck? Just because they paid it to him? Consider, for example, that as CEO of American Express, he was also responsible for American Express Financial Advisors, a company which was widely known for pushing high cost insurance products onto its financial planning clients solely for the fact that they paid the highest commissions to AEFA. How much of Golub’s earnings came from that? Does it matter that it was unethical? Golub certainly didn’t build the company and there’s no way of knowing how much value he created for shareholders (ethically or not), so why is he so sure that he earned it?
Much of this comes down to self-serving bias, which plays a role in each of us to some extent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_serving_bias). But to people like Harvey Golub and the rest of the “Atlas Shrugged” fans, it is a dominant force in their personality. Every success you have is due to your own superiority, so if someone else is not succeeding at your level, they must be lazy and undeserving.
The question is the percentage of luck vs hard work. When we are winning we contribute this to hard work, when we are losing we assume the outcome to bad luck. From my business experience, I would put the odds at 50% to 50%-you can work your butt off towards bankruptcy.
For most businesses, most of the success comes from careful planning, good execution, and having sufficient capital.
Identify your market clearly, identify your competitors, what will distinguish you from the, and run some test cases, etc., etc. If you actually start carefully instead of just charging in, I think your business will have a much better than 50% chance to succeed.
But I don’t think most new business owners do this. And all the hard work in the world won’t save you from a fundamentally flawed business model.
It’s the working smart vs working hard thing again. And *being* smart isn’t the same as working smart.
I tend to feel the same way as Cullen, but I also know that I pat myself on the back too often for my success. It sure feels like we create our own luck when our efforts are aligned with fortune. But I know that to a degree even my temperament and drive and knowledge are all products of forces in play to which I did not contribute and of which I am largely unaware. So I think it’s good to maintain a general attitude of humility and gratitude for what has allowed me to achieve what I have, rather than assuming that I must be in some way better than others who have achieved less.
And I hope everyone by now has re-listened to the speech and figured out that “you didn’t build that” refers to the infrastructure that allows the economy to operate, not to the actual businesses people have built.
Jerry,
“And I hope everyone by now has re-listened to the speech and figured out that “you didn’t build that” refers to the infrastructure”
What he intended is exactly what he said. He always tells the truth about what he is thinking and believes when he is off the teleprompter.
This is so damaging to him because it is a true reflection of his worldview and explains why everyone who is paying attention thinks he is an “anti-business” President.
No amount of spin or damage control will lessen this and when you listen to the whole speech it sounds even worse. It is insulting and condescending to just about anyone who calls themselves an entrepreneur.
For the record, I did build this comment
If he was referring to infrastructure with his “you didn’t build that” why does he immediately follow it with the example (businesses profiting from the Internet) highlighting businesses making money off of a federal investment? I think he said exactly what he meant and he meant exactly what he said.
The Internet is most certainly a form of infrastructure which businesses benefit from and which exists in its present form thanks to the government. In this it is no different than roads, bridges, etc.
That speech in its entirety is a joke. One of the most embarassing things a President has ever said.
“Infrastructure” is what pays the salaries of the workers. Seriously I have no idea how you can possibly think that this philosophy is an accurate representation of how the US economy works.
http://smallbiztrends.com/2004/06/reagan-and-small-business.html
“Reagan noted in a June 1983 speech: “We hear so much about the greed of business. Well, frankly, I’d like to hear a little more about the courage, generosity, and creativity of business. I’d like to hear it pointed out that entrepreneurs don’t have guaranteed annual incomes. Before they can turn a profit, they must anticipate and deliver what consumers want…. The truth is, before entrepreneurs can take, they must give.”
Amazing how you can see right into the depth of someone’s soul and know exactly what they intended. That must be a trick only Fox News viewers possess.
Relisten to what Obama said. He was specifically referring to the infrastructure.
he also said “this unbelievable American system” right before that, and the 4 items were clearly in one long thought – “this unbelievable American system, roads and bridges, if you’ve got a business, you didn’t built that”.
I just didn’t hear it that way, and still don’t. I suppose we each are tuned to interpret what we hear the way we are predisposed to hear it. I’m OK with reasoned discussions of different perspectives–it’s essential. I personally don’t think Obama is anti-business or anti-prosperity or most other anti-s that get attributed to him. He’s nuanced, but that just doesn’t seem to work for most people anymore.
Does anyone really believe that all businesses are pure and good and all government is corrupt and evil. Did every successful person get there by their own grit and merit and every marginalized person fall there due to laziness and personal fault? It just doesn’t look that way to me. I agree with Reagan that it’s wrong to assume all business is based on greed. There is a lot of courage, generosity and creativity, as Obama has said over and over. But there is certainly greed as well, and corruption, and often a lack of responsibility and appreciation for a common good. So why is so hard to talk about the positives and negatives together, about checks and balances and compromise?
It seems that no one can see the shades of gray anymore and cut folks a little slack who are trying to acknowledge and express a more complicated view of the world. I’m afraid that the insistence on an either/or, black/white interpretation of every issue and policy is going to keep the country from ever finding an effective middle path back to prosperity.
Couldn’t agree more, great comment. There’s not much subtlety in our politics. We could just give most voters a big foam #1 hand in either red or blue and save everyone a lot of trouble.
The truth is much more grey than anyone acknowledges. That’s why I loved The Wire – people make their own luck, but they’re also a product of the environment and institutions that they belong to.
Read Taleb for an explanation about luck and randomness and also how he shows that the millionaire next door stuff is wrong. Many people have the same traits as these millionaires and they dont succeed therefore the traits are not the “key”. The key is that randomness is the missing ingredient, but of course who wants to say “oh I just got lucky”. No we much prefer to confess to our own genius.
Read Steven.J. Gould also. He explains that in evolution, if the world was started again then we humans would most likely not be here. So we are here as a matter of luck and randomness – simply put. It is the way the world works. If it wasn’t then I would be able to predict the future and then simply bet on it and retire.
If you think it is not luck then please let me know who the next Steve Jobs or Buffett is and I will buy their shares.
Yup Pragcap is just a random occurrence. Taleb never made these assertions.
“If you think it is not luck then please let me know who the next Steve Jobs or Buffett is and I will buy their shares.”
Extreme outliers are more random.
A person living on welfare or working for someone else without any intention of starting a business will never become a millionaire next door. Isn’t that obvious?
How does one become a millionaire as a business owner if they don’t ever try? The “trying” is the defining characteristic, not luck.
How about this, I’ll tell you when Taleb will sell his next best selling book that is largely based on innovative marketing genius, not “lucky” writing or circumstance.
Taleb is simply saying that if you list characteristics that “make” you successful (and write a book about it) what about those cases where people who also demonstrate the same characteristics hard work, prudence etc and dont/didnt succeed. So what is the difference? Some are “lucky” and some are not aren’t they? See Page 146 Fooled by Randomness. The visibility of winners – “In a nutshell, the survivorship bias implies that the highest performing realization will be the most visible. Why? Because the losers dont show up”.
Taleb did also state that you should expose yourself to as many opportunities as possible and this way you increase your chances of being lucky”
Start a business? Write down what you can control and what you cant? I will wager there are millions of things that you can not control and very few that you can.
As value investors say you can control the process but not the outcome. So yes, you can work hard, dave money and it may increase your chances but that does not mean it is a sure thing does it?
Not luck? Consider your own intellect which you were born with, and the parents you were born too. Now drop your IQ to very average, and be born to parents who never read you a book, who project things like “fear of success” or “fear of failure” or “fear of money”… let alone hate for hard work, or mistrust or hatred of authority figures, etc.
Now tell me how you would be who you are today. No one is bashing business or hard work – but to say you did it without luck is pretty ridiculous.
Obama’s “you didn’t build that” clearly also referred to “this unbelievable American system”. Now imagine if you were born in North Korea, or Somalia, etc. So we are all pretty damn lucky regardless of what’s going on in our lives.
But if someone wants to hate Obama, as so many try so hard to do, then interpret it how you will. Just don’t get offended with Romney’s lines get repeated ad naseum… “I like to fire people”, “I’m not worried about the very poor”, “corporations are people” and his explanation that to “help the American people” we need fewer cops and firemen.
One Obama comment, yet Romney can’t stop… instead of Obama’s supposed “apology tour” which Romney repeats all of the time, Romney is clearly on his own “insult tour” yesterday the Brits, today the Palestinians… I can’t wait for tomorrow.
I actually didn’t get great grades. I score above average on IQ tests, but not off the charts. If there’s one thing I have it’s desire. An unquenchable thirst for answers and to be a better man. That’s about it. I was the little guy on the football field who put his head down and worked harder, ran the sprints harder, worked harder in the gym. I’ve gotten much bigger over the years, but only through an enormous amount of hard work trying to craft my body into what I want it to look like. Granted, my parents were fantastic, but I shunned their advice along the way, almost got kicked out of every school they put me in and refused to go into the family business. I’ve only achieved what I’ve achieved because I grew up at some point and realized that my body and mind were things I could craft if I put the effort into it.
Also, I voted for Obama so this is by no means an attack on him. But I just don’t think he fully comprehends or appreciates what it takes to start a business and run one. Not that this is necessarily a qualification for Presidency, but if he doesn’t understand stuff then he just shouldn’t talk about it. This is one thing he doesn’t know much about….
There’s an element of luck in everything that occurs in our lives. Where we’re born, what family we’re born into, who we meet along the way, etc. But there’s also a great deal of opportunity that is created through the way one lives their life. Of course, I’m generalizing to some degree here, but on average, I think one creates their own luck more than they’re dealt a crappy hand….
“Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.”
“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”
- Bruce Lee
Chew on that.
You had parents with their own business? And acknowledge “they were great”. I think those are two incredibly lucky things to have had as a background. I too have a personality where I’ll run through walls to accomplish what I have my mind set on, but I had to go through YEARS of therapy to deal with some really backwards lessons I learned as a kid. I don’t feel like getting into tons of details, but some of the fears I quoted were mine. But I had that “run through walls” desire, and the money and time to go to therapy. I still suffer from self-inflicted obstacle thinking, but to a far lesser degree. But if you’ve never suffered those things, you don’t know what you don’t know…. and just how lucky you are not to have learned backwards lessons.
Your daily role models teach you SOOOO much that is literally ingrained… so now with a young daughter I’m very conscientious of the lessons I teach her – for example, if she’s building a tower of blocks and they fall down I make a fun game of it called “try again” and we build it again so she doesn’t learn frustration and quitting. My parents were more along the lines of “if you failed then it wasn’t meant to be” and “if it breaks, oh well we’ll live without it” – literally this happened to things like our lawn mower, washing machine, etc and we just dealt with it. Some truly whacky things where I had to learn for the first time that I actually could fix things – including myself, and that one failure was just one result and I should try again.
But I’ve also got a laundry list of lucky things and can see how I could have ended up so much worse off.
As for Obama I still don’t buy any of the “he doesn’t get it” arguments. He’s accomplished some incredible things in his life against all odds, and running campaigns has a lot in common with running a business. Managing people, money, a message, competing, etc, etc. Overall it’s just amazing how much has been made out of one populist speech.
I didn’t say I had no obstacles in my life and that I was just handed everything without having to try or overcome personal problems (that was not the case). But my personal situation doesn’t prove or disprove anything. It’s one case in billions. If you want to walk around the world believing that the average person has no shot at succeeding in the world or that their success is sheer luck, then be my guest. I happen to believe there’s a lot more that goes into success than the way someone is raised and what background they’re born into, but that’s my opinion and you know what they say about a-holes and opinions – we all got ‘em. And if you’re protecting this idea on ideological grounds in defense of a politician you believe in then you’re making a mistake.
I’m not saying you were just handed things, and that your hard work and drive didn’t matter. Of course they mattered – no sane person would question that which is why I’m standing up for the Obama speech. I can’t understand this idea that someone as successful as Obama doesn’t understand what it takes to succeed at something else. And don’t worry, I think there’s plenty wrong with Obama – but the GOP has just gone so far off the deep end on virtually everything that I just can’t even imagine being an enabler of that by voting for them.
Right on Hangemhi. I can’t understand the derision that Obama was a community organizer. This is how you really come to understand people and power. None of us make it on our own and none of us fuck up on our own. Of course it is easier to see life from this perspective, but science is increasingly telling us this this isn’t so. Surprisingly, even church tradition tells us that the difference between a saint and a sinner is a razor blade and offers no explanation for the difference.
It is so obvious watching the Olympics that any athletes’s success is not based on 1,000′s of hours of training, sacrifice, self motivation, but rather on some government bureaucrat. I’m sure that is so totally clear to all Obama and Elizabeth Warren voters and other enlightened people.
Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Serena Williams should thank the Department of Motor Vehicles for their success.
As a spouse of an Olympic Gold Medal winner I can tell you first hand that the governmnet had zero to do with it. If you believe otherwise you are a fool, and the world has no shortage of fools.
Ever notice which countries get the most medals? Of course putting thousands of hours into your sport will make you better, but what how else would those athletes ever be able to put in that kind of time if their countries/societies didn’t foster that kind of dedication? Read Outliers before coming around with your Randian nonsense.
Thank You, you took the words right out of my mouth
How about the public schools Jordan attended, or the public basketball counrts he played on?
As for the topic “luck” how about his genes? Don’t recall off hand, but as I understand it there is a gene that EVERY Olympic athlete, and every pro sports player have. If you don’t have it, no amount of training will get you there. I can throw a baseball 80 mph. I tried everything under the sun to throw it harder – EVERYTHING. Tim Lincecum can throw in the mid ’90′s. Tell me Lincecum wasn’t lucky? If it wasn’t luck then every MLB pitcher would be throwing 100 mph.
Luck is when perperation meets opportunity. If Jordan or Lincecum weren’t prepared to dedicate the time and effort to develop whatever latent skills they won in the genetic lottery, they would not have acheived, full stop. Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox certainly isn’t the best athlete on the field, but he is one of the best second baseman in the league due to his dedication, attitude, and effort. Of course there is an element of luck in any given outcome. Being in the right place at the right time, etc. The question is, what are you prepared to do when that opportunity presents itself. The successful, in whatever field they toil, made the best of whatever chance they were given.
Many succeed despite being born into an environment that did not foster dedication or success. I’m on the board of a non-profit that provides summer school remedial edcuational training for 6 – 8 graders living in Hartford, CT, one of the worst public school systems in the country. These kids live in broken home and in broken communities where there is no importance placed on education or school work. When given the opportunity to attend our program, they sacrifice 3 summers to get up to speed educationally so that they can attend a private school in the area and get into college. Were they lucky that they got picked for the program? Yes. Do they have to make sacrifices and work hard to overcome their educational and cultural/community deficiencies? Absolutely! Their success is all on them from the point we select them. And by the way, the program is funded completely by donations from wealthy contributors and successful companies that succeeded where others failed by virtue of hard work, working smarter, being more aggressive, and make the most of whatever opportunities and challenges presented themselves.
You want the answer to this debate? Answer the following question – If you take 100 people and set them up at Time Zero with the exact same opportunity set and circumstances, will they all end up in the same place or with the same level of success? Of course they won’t, and everyone knows it; even our Deluder in Chief. The difference in outcome will be smarts, creativity, hard work, dedication, sacrifice, focus, goal orientation, and aggressiveness.
Having access to basketball courts and schools that a sh*tload of other people had access too is not f*cking lucky, its by definition AVERAGE. Are we all better off because there are roads and schools and so on and so forth? Of course. Does it mean that I’m as good a basketball player as Michael Jordan because I had the access? No, it means we started from the same level (not including how much better his genes probably are than mine) and he outerperformed because he had the drive and some level of god given talent to do so.
Right now the country with the bureaucrats directing athletics has more medals than anyone else …
Per capita, they’re not.
They list ‘em that way, by per capita, right?
Well in my country most of the Olympic (= unpopular) sports are in some form or another publicly funded and for many it also requires parents who are very supportive. I don’t think you can put in the required training if you have to work a normal work week.
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S33/87/54K53/
Good paragraph:
“The “Moneyball” story has practical implications. If you use better data, you can find better values; there are always market inefficiencies to exploit, and so on. But it has a broader and less practical message: don’t be deceived by life’s outcomes. Life’s outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.”
Better paragraph:
“All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may. But you’ll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don’t.”
As I like to say, the best capitalists are the ones who give the most back. The team leader should have broken up that 4th cookie and distributed it to the team so they’d stay happy.
I’m sure the speech was well-received by the crowd, it’s just that we live in a take-out-of-context and post-on-YouTube kind of a world. Both sides do this by the way, I don’t hold Romney’s “I like to fire people” comment against him. We’d all be better served by focusing on policies rather than quotes, but what fun is that?
Cullen,
This irritates the hell out of me for the same reason. Unlike you I was not and never will be a President Obama supporter. I took my shot as an entrepreneur, risked everything, and won; so telling me that it was just luck or some road or bridge that made it happen for me is just plain insulting.
Another Bruce Lee anecdote:
“Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?” He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”
Story about Bruce Lee.
http://cavemancircus.com/2011/06/08/bruce-lee-on-the-limits-we-place-on-ourselves/
That’s so funny. One of my favorite stories ever. I have the quote “THEN DIE!” on a poster in my office with the anecdote below. Thanks for sharing it.
Is it just luck that we are attracted to the same anecdote?
Read Sam Harris on “Free Will”. It will make you think about how much credit we should take or blame we should attribute.
I don’t think *anyone* said it was “just” luck. But I think anyone who doesn’t admit that there was a hell of a lot of luck involved is rather self-deceived.
What about those who risked everything and unlike you didn’t win?
I cant imagine what it is like to live life having absolutely no luck at all.
I hate the idea of even talking about how lucky someone is/isn’t. The crux of the definition of luck/chance is something one does not have control over. Whether someone is lucky or not, to me, is irrelevant as it is by definition not something one can or does influence. I like the sentiment but not the saying “you make your own luck.” If you can influence/impact something, it ain’t luck, by definition.
‘Luck’ seems like such a wildly idiotic thing to even be talking about when it comes to success. Lets say we have a person who is just average. Born in the middle of the middle class, has the average level of education, is a regular ‘joe schmoe’ in the personality department, is physically average, and has the average amount of ‘drive’ in both personal and professional endeavors. Find me that guy at the top of fortune 500 company, find me that guy sitting on piles of cash from the company he built and maybe sold, or find me that guy as the captain of a major league sports team. You just aren’t going to do it. If someone is at the top of the ladder, it is because they strove to be and were better than 99% percent of their competitors. The other 1%, well, maybe there were some uncontrollable things to propel them up to the top slot above their best competitors (and maybe not, mind you) but they didn’t get where they are because of luck.
Sure there are some trust fund babies out there who have great paying jobs and titles they don’t do a whole lot for. And for that they are lucky, certainly luckier than me. But frankly, I don’t care and certainly don’t feel they owe me or anyone else. Them having or not having X,Y, or Z simply does not affect me. If its me v the other guy for a job position, and we are qualified EXACTLY the same for the position, and he gets it and I don’t because his dad knows someone. Well good for him and that sucks for me. Move on, we were exactly the same candidate except for one factor out of my control (and frankly mostly out of his) so the idea that I am owed something is ridiculous to me. If I am markedly more qualified than him and he gets the position because of someone his dad knows? Funny you should ask as this JUST happened to me. I smiled when I found out. That sucks for them, they’re selling low and buying high; probably best not to work for people who think like that. Maybe the connection is worth that much to them, it’s their decision, and I don’t begrudge them for it simply because I didn’t benefit.
Something like drive makes so much more sense to concentrate on as it is a factor we can and do control. I don’t care how lucky someone is, I want to know how hard they fight to overcome obstacles (like, oh, say being unlucky).
To close my rant, let me say this, there are of course some extreme examples of ‘unluckiness’ such as getting hit by a bus and suffering brain damage to a point where drive and other contributory factors simply don’t matter to this persons life- that exists outside of what I am saying here. I certainly agree then, that society (the royal we) all owe that person a certain level of ‘something’ administered through governmental mechanisms. The reasoning is simple; if we were that person we would hope to god we lived in a society where such wildly unlucky people are taken care of.
That is just plain stupid and I have absolutely no doubt that you, Anonymous Internet Poster, place all sorts of limits on yourself. I bet Bruce Lee did, too. Go ahead and raise your kids telling them there are no limits; I’m sure everything will turn out fine.
Hey Cullen, maybe ya need to find a way for frequent visitors to be able to find *new* comments when they get to be this many? Threading is nice, but having to read 60+ comments all over again to find the 4 or 5 new ones isn’t.
Luck favors the prepared mind….however even the prepared mind can not overcome the corruption of the state.
The household you’re born into is the primary determinant of success in the aggregate.
Group 1 – I was born into an upper-middle class white household and went to a good private school. Every single one of the kids I went to school with are now reasonably successful and still, at least, upper-middle class. Many of these kids did not work hard at school and had little drive – yet they’re still driving around in nice cars and live in nice homes.
Group 2 – I mentor a young man from “the hood.” Every single one of his peers was born into a broken household at the poverty level and every single one remains at the poverty level.
Now, are the kids in Group 2 still poor because they failed to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” like the kids in Group 1? That’s frickin ridiculous. Their respective socio-economic status is determined by the homes they were born into. Switch the babies at birth (and their skin color) and the kids born poor will largely stay poor and vice versa.
Now, within Groups 1 and 2 drive and intelligence does matter. Nobody is denying that. The smartest hardest working kids in my highschool have largely done the best (excluding those that got to take over Daddy’s business). But I think what many of the Atlas Shrugged crowd fails to comprehend is how much the deck is stacked FOR the kids in Group 1 and AGAINST the kids in Group 2. If this wasn’t a factor you’d expect roughly the same number of kids in Groups 1 and 2 to achive upper-middle class success. Clearly, that doesn’t happen.
Skateman, you’re taking extremes to prove a point. Not everyone in the world is born into a rich household or a ghetto. Now, is it more difficult for a kid from the ghetto to turn into Warren Buffett? Yes. But that’s again, an extreme example. The point is, that the average person can succeed and what decides whether the average person succeeds compared to the average person who doesn’t, is due to something inert that they seize the opportunity in.
I’m using an extreme example to make a point. But let’s use a less extreme example. My wife comes from more of a blue-collar middle class background. She and her peers all went to public school. They are all, without exception, still middle class just like their parents. None are upper class or even upper middle class.
If America was truly a meritocracy the same percentage of kids from poor households (25% of the population), middle class housholds, and higher class households, should achieve upper middle class success. But that’s not even close to being the case. So your chances of success are largely determined by who your parents are. And that’s luck plain and simple.
http://www.economist.com/node/3518560
That’s actually not accurate. This study shows significant income mobility. The people born into the middle bracket end up dispersed almost perfectly across the other brackets 10 years later. 30% of families moved into a higher income bracket according to the 1988 data and 28% moved lower. 32% of those in the lower middle moved into a higher bracket. Similarly, 48% of those in the top quintile moved LOWER while 48% from the lowest bracket moved HIGHER. People don’t just end up where they start by random chance. Though obviously, where you start makes a difference. But this idea that you’re destined to be what you’re born into is just nonsense. The data clearly shows that’s not the case even though I do agree that being born into a bad situation raises the odds that you’ll end up there. I never said luck plays no role…..
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_03.html
It’s not either or or black or white. But note that those in the top two brackets have little chance of ending up in the bottom bracket. Conversely, those in the bottom two brackets have little chance of ending up in the top bracket. Note also that while those in the middle bracket are evenly dispersed across all brackets (that’s not what I’ve experienced or witnessed in my life but whatever), the dispersal is highly skewed up for those in the top brackets and down for those in the bottom. That’s the luck of the draw of where you were born and nothing more.
And you’re knocking down a straw man when you say “the idea that you’re destined to be what you’re born into is just nonsense.” Of course fate isn’t inexorable. I’m just talking about odds. If you’re born in the bottom brackets, the odds are against you. Success isn’t impossible but unlikely. If you’re born in the upper brackets, the odds are in your favor. Failure isn’t impossible, but it’s less likely. The chart you linked to shows this very clearly. I would argue also that inequality has gotten a lot worse since 1998.
You say “There’s an element of luck in everything we do, but we are not just floating through our lives randomly becoming victims or successes of things we can’t control. To a large degree, we determine the outcomes of our lives. We determine what we build and how we build it.”
I think luck is a lot more than just an “element.” Sure, lower and middle class kids can succeed in America. But they face a hell of a lot tougher climb.
And as smart as you are, you’ve got to be pretty idealistic to think you largely determined your fate.
You were lucky to be born in America.
You were lucky to born in the last 100 years.
You were lucky to be born without any debilitating handicaps.
You’re lucky you don’t have any debilitating handicaps period, for instance, from a drunk driver.
You’re lucky your parents weren’t physically or mentally abusive.
You’re lucky you weren’t born in the lower income brackets.
You’re lucky as hell the stupid things you did when you were young didn’t kill you, maim you, or cause you to end up in jail. Or anyway, I know I am.
So how much of our fate is luck vs. skill? Who knows. But I think it’s a hell of a lot more than a mere “element.”
Let’s not be silly. I mean, if you want to be really extreme you could just say “you’re lucky you weren’t born a dog”. Yeah, that’s true. That would have really wrecked my chances of becoming a billionaire (sorry for the extreme sarcasm, but I hope you get my point).
The average human American (which is what we’re studying here) is born in America into an average family. For some reason some of them end up at the top and some end up at the bottom. Again, studying average human Americans, I wonder why it is that some of those average people end up at the top and some end up at the bottom. You seem to think that those who make it to the top are mostly lucky. I don’t….
But in fairness, I am probably trying to make it too black and white. The reality, as always, is somewhere inbetween and my guess is that you’re right to some varying degree just as much as I am….I think maybe it’s accurate to say that we are born with certain established capabilities/influences and over time your environment and your inherent will decides the direction you go. Much of this is sheer luck, much of this is not. Maybe the title of this post should be “You Partially Make Your Own Luck”.
I agree. It’s a scale. Luck is hugely important but so is skill. To what degree is debatable. Moreover, the degree of luck involved is different for different people. The lower class kid with nothing going for him who worked his ass off to become a success benefited little from luck. The kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth benefited entirely from luck. That’s probably another reason we all come at this question from different angles. My personal success has benefited a great deal from luck. I did practically nothing but chase women in college. I did little out of college for a few years. I landed an internship at a great investment firm out of sheer chance. (I had no idea how great my firm was at that time). I’ve been here 11 years and am now a CFA charterholder and in charge of all research. I worked hard but man was I lucky. I recognize that. So that undoubtedly colors my view as well.
Don’t sell yourself short!
Think Freud’s term the “Narcissism of small differences” is applicable in this context. Maybe I have a screwed up interpretation of it, but very simplistically put it has to do with blaming others for your own failure and then taking full credit for own success.
Books like Outliers and Taleb’s Black Swan deal with very similar concepts. What if someone with Steve Jobs’ brain, genetics etc. etc. was born in Somalia?
Personally I live in South-East Asia where I run my own computer business. Of course, a shitload of drive and commitment from my part for it to come to fruition. But tracing it back to past events that I had absolutely no control over, a lot of sheer luck involved.
Great comments.
Plus-1 on Taleb’s views on random-ness. Most of what we see as success has been determined by our birth, our health, our associations that we grow up with.
For example, look at it from an investing point of view — if I bought the index of suburban high school grads, I would certainly do better than if I tried to buy the best individuals in the city high school.
Somebody mentioned the Olympics — yes, the Olympians are talented and work hard, but some societies put more emphasis on pushing their athletes. Korea seems to be producing women’s golfers right now, the Russians used to produce chess players; American blacks push their kids into football and basketball.
But one important extra factor for success in America is that we have a system that largely rewards hard work, risk taking and initiative. What worries me about Obama’s politics is that he wants to take those away in the interest of spreading the wealth around.
Of importance is to note how are event are used to make conclusion:
- the few group 2 kids (to use Skateman nice analysis framework) that manage to do it are used to justify current system as being a big opportunity generator. But statistically is it negligible.
- the few group 1 real entrepreneurs that risks things are used to justify current system as being a big opportunity generator. But compared to the mass of group 1 people who get rewarded just because they are in group 1 it is statistically negligible.
As a result the assumption of system efficiency should be rejected. Statistics are telly a much different story…but “storytelling” is a crooked technique that seem to be much more efficient to influence people mind…
now what would be better is another story…
While I would generally agree working better is critical to success (amongst other factors including luck), not everyone has equal access to the resources necessary to determine which may be the best ways to work “better” – although given the expansion of access to the internet the barriers in many areas are falling.
Liberals confuse good policy with charity and compassion.
The comments here made me sad. The U.S has always had a public private partnership. The American economic school in the late 1800′s had to explain to the world, especially the British, that rising wages and improved productivity went hand in hand.
New roads, bridges, good water, well fed people, good education, were all things that led to a growing and improving population as well as economic outlook. It is public spending, particularly on infrastructure and inelastic markets that help drive the productivity gains.
If government spends properly in those areas, it creates a framework for private enterprise to function. That spending can be debt free and has a lot of bang for the buck. We seem to have forgotten that, and the comments are kind of unreal.