I like the article but it seems to get into trouble when it starts trying to establish absolutes like luck is more important than skill. IlliniDave was first to point this out.
IlliniDave wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 10:23 am
What I didn't get from the article is whether they tried to take into account that some people are very deliberate about wealth accumulation and achieve it,
I get in this argument with my siblings a lot. They were always singled out as the talented ones in my family and I was always told I’d never be as good as them. And to a large extent it was true as far as talent got distributed. They had all the blue ribbons on their walls and me none. People saw it, I sucked and they were academic rock stars. From our middle school marks to the significance of our PhD theses. They were clearly more talented. And that’s why they cannot seem to accept why I have more money.
Why? That dumbass Sclass. Impossible.
Well because talent and the success around it and money getting are different things. They can be related but they are two distinct things. Talent is what you are. Money getting is the game. My brilliant brother and sister do not apply themselves to efficient money getting outside of a good W2. They try to compare salary to risk adjusted returns from the stock market. Linear vs. exponential phenomena. Two totally different games.
Putting blue ribbons on the wall isn’t always the same as putting dollars in the bank. I’ve met enough poor Olympic medalists IRL to convince me of that one.
The authors are quick to point out wealthy finance people. The authors are probably talented academics at MIT. Two totally different games. With different currencies.
The sad part is I’m still the dumb kid in my family. I just got involved in a riskier game with exponential returns. I failed at their career climbing game that delivered increasing linear returns accompanied with higher taxes and expenses.
The funny part is my brother (a PhD mathematician) wrote a Python program for me that “proved” I was a lucky idiot who beat the survivorship bias. Roll the dice and you get the 1%, the rest become the 99% and it is purely stochastic.
But he’s wrong. The authors and the rest of the 99% don’t pick up the dice in the first place then they wonder why a bunch of rich idiots who happen to be in finance have more money than they do. It’s the participation in the game by talented players.
“Duh I dunno they all seem to be in finance, I don’t know why the coincidence exists?