Most Rich People Are Smarter And Harder Working Than You
It is fascinating to watch as Democrats and liberals defend President Obama’s now-infamous comments about success and prosperity being the result not of individual intelligence and work ethic but of government helping you (example). “I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart,” said the President. “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… If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.”
Democrats claim those comments were taken out of context, but there really is no context that changes the meaning of those words. To paraphrase Adam Carolla, Obama seems to think that Derek Jeter’s success at baseball comes not from his talent and hard work but from the fact that he could drive to Yankee stadium on a public road every day instead of riding a horse.
Yes, public roads and nice at all, but they’re not why Jeter is successful.
I know it’s not fashionable to say in this age of class war and envy, but rich people are usually rich because they’re more talented and/or work harder than the rest of us.
Of course, that isn’t always true. There are the Paris Hilton’s of the world who live extravagantly on the riches amassed by their smarter, harder-working ancestors. And there are those who simply luck into wealth or collect it through nefarious means. But, generally speaking, the reason the guy in the “rich” part of town has a newer car than you do or a bigger house isn’t because there’s some cabal of greedy, oppressive plutocrats working to keep you down but rather because that guy is probably smarter than you. Works harder than you. And, perhaps most importantly, made better decisions in his life than you did.
To put it bluntly, for every Paris Hilton in the world there is a Bill Gates and a Steve Jobs who rose to the top because of their brains, hard work and ability to innovate.
One of the cold, hard truths about life is that prosperity usually indexes directly to desire, work ethic and intelligence. But people don’t like to hear that, just as they don’t like to hear that losing weight requires sweaty exercise and a diet limited on delicious junk food. That’s why media is crowded with advertising for products and services promising to make you skinny with minimal effort.
That’s also why the political world is crowded with class warriors who would have us believe that wealth isn’t the result of hard work but because the wealthy cheated some how, or got rich at the expense of the rest of us. Because society at large doesn’t like the truth.
Being skinny takes self-discipline and work. So does being rich. But everyone wants a shortcut.
Tags: adam carolla, Barack Obama, class warfare
