Income Inequality is Good | 5 Minute Video 

"The worst thing about Capitalism is that everybody is unequally rich. The best thing about Communism is that everybody is equally poor" - Winston Churchill.

Everyone shouldnt be equally rich. But everyone should have equal opportunity to become rich, and everyond should be able to make his living

Everyone generally accepts a 40 hour work week now. That exists because the working class fought for it. Things like this are not given out of the kindness overflowing from the hearts of businesses. The same goes for increasing wages.

If you want a democracy with income inequality, then you need to get money out of politics, or you'll end up with a highly corrupt plutocratic oligarchy like we're getting now.

The problem I see is the 1% can spend their extra money on lobbying for laws that keep the other 99% down. PragerU should make a video about that.

Video tries to make sense but fails.

A big flaw with this is that most of the time your wealthiness is inherited, and often you dont have to work, while meanwhile the poor people who are poor cause they grew up with poor families are getting poorer and poorer

He is going to say income inequality is good since he is wealthy.

Prager pissed off the Bernie bros

There's a difference between having enough money to test buy expensive products and literally controlling so much of the world's wealth that a middle class can't form.

The problem is when people start playing the system with 💰

the problem though is that social mobility becomes increasingly more difficult the lower you start out on the social ladder

Sadly this "freedom to guide your own destiny" is only available if you are not stuck in the cycle of poverty and actually is financially stable away from mere subsistence.

"From my perspective the Jedi are Evil!" - Anakin Skywalker - Darth Vader

This is one of the dumbest arguments I have ever heard in my life. "The rich are the test buyers"? Really? Trickle-down economics much?

I wish that I was a conservative. Life would be so much easier believing this stupid stuff instead of actually having to use my brain.

"Just post a random Quote in the comments, everyone will think you're right and give you likes even though quotes are practically meaningless as arguments" - Albert Einstein, 2016

This is so impressively wrong on all counts it might just go viral.

I like how he says you're free to pursue whatever you want while PragerU has a video called Don't Follow Your Passion.

Oh my god man! Blink!

I managed to make it close to the 3 minute mark here. This video is hilarious. Being poor and overworked is awesome!

Does this dude ever blink? Scaring the crap outta me with his googly starry eyes

'Wealthy people became wealthy because they have more money than I do' Bruhhh...

The problem with the income inequality gap isn't exactly the gap itself or that there is inequality. The problem is that we've reached a point in our economy where one with much can buy the means to make the gap much wider. If you have the economic power to use your resources to buy out your competition, gain political leverage, or to entrench yourself from said competition, or have the means to fuel your fortune abroad, then there is little stopping you from doing that.

This video assumes everyone has an equal opportunity to get in to the 1%, and that it's just a matter of choice being in the 99%. It couldn't be more wrong.

A person who inherits a bunch of money is inherently better and a harder worker... I'm sure... Let's just ignore that cornucopia of social issues associated with high wealth disparity and how trickle down economics just leads to the wealthy hoarding money.

Um.. somebody tell Prager U we had all the same innovation in the 50s/60s without this gross inequality?

Got no issue with Capitalism, but crony capitalism has got to end. AND the Tax code needs to go and replaced by the Fair Tax.

I work at a McDonalds in Canada. I am a teenager who works around 15 hours a week at the McDonalds at $10.55 cents per hour. I hear alot of my adult coworkers who are over 27 years old talk about how horrible it is that people are rich and that its horrible that money is not shared aka Communism. I completely disagree with them. These Mcdonalds workers deserve to make minimal wage and they make that amount because they never took any risks in there lives. Like starting a business. Risk can either be a failure or be extremely rewarding thats the beauty of capitalism. One day when I was working our main head boss came in. The owner of our particular Mcdonalds restaurant and 4 other ones spread out in Ontario. Some of the people I work for hate the man even though he looks pretty friendly to me. They think that hes a greedy old man. Well I dont hiss at that man. He is a true capitalist. He has alowed me to get a job. The money that his business has given me is helping me to save up for college. He gave me a job when no one else in my town would. He allowed me to buy a car and continues to allow me to put gas in that car. He has allowed me to put money in a savings account for my future. He has created over 500 jobs in Canada. He took the risk of opening up these restaurants not even knowing if they would succeed. I love my boss and every idiot in that restaurant should see the great things that this millionaire has done for them but they cant. Because they are ungrateful government loving socialists where as I am a conservative who embraces the 1 percent and believes that they push our country forward.

Income inequality is nether good nor bad. Mexico, the country with the highest inequality, is not very prosperous whereas the US is third on the list and doing well. Greece is high up on the chart and isn't a great place to stay but the U.K also has a fairly large amount of inequality yet is well-developed.

I take issue with the 1% club "being always open to new members"

Cell phone, that's nothing. Even the cheapest 25 year old car will provide you with comfort that kings could never even imagine 200 years ago.

income inequality is good, with a thriving middle class. however, when the middle class disappears, and you are either in a wealthy upper class or lower class/ on the poverty line, that's when it becomes a problem. and unfortunately that's the track the united States has been on recently.

Good theory, but practical markets are not free, that's the issue. Markets get manipulated by the big players and financial systems which prints debt money for them and earns interests for it which the working class has to cover.

This video gives me “Inequality is not wrong, equality is!” vibes

RU-vid channel funded by billionaires tells you wealth inequality is actually good. In other news, water is still wet

Equality of opportunity, NOT outcome. Theirs a difference. Thank you PragerU.

This exploration of inequality is worthwhile for several reasons, but the explanation of why inequality is "good" must be addressed first. It is, or should be, self-evident, that the argument is essentially valid. People with more disposable items are, by definition, more willing and able to purchase expensive, cutting edge technologies, thereby both encouraging technological development, and supporting new industries when they may be at their most vulnerable stage. This is unquestionably a cornerstone of survival for new tech as it makes its way towards manufacturing economies of scale that make mass dissemination at affordable prices possible. However, while this position seems to hold up very well at first blush, it is, in fact, built on a house of cards. First, the current level of wealth inequality is vastly greater than what is necessary for early adopter-dependent, nascent industries to grow. In point of fact, the wealthiest one percent, indeed, the top ten percent of the population have far, far more wealth than can be spent on expensive consumer goods, new or not. If this fact existed in a vacuum, it might be innocuous. However, this almost unimaginable amount of wealth - held by the richest - is largely responsible for conditions that are, ironically, undermining the heart of this very argument. The amazing technologies rightly highlighted in the video are not the product of a few clever individuals, small teams, or even large, wealthy corporations. They all, without exception, arose from decades and decades of basic research, scientific exploration, and experiments in applied sciences. All enabled not by the wealthy, but rather funded by the gathered resources of all the citizens of the various involved countries - largely the United States but with important contributions from many others. Scientific research is costly, usually involves long-term promises of financial support without the need to immediately see a return on the investment, and provides the kind of flexibility indispensable to scientific discovery and understanding. All the wonderful gadgets mentioned are built on the foundations laid by government research funding. Without governments capable of, and far-sighted enough, to provide resources, you and I would not have cell phones, or flat screen televisions, or laptops. But governments are, obviously, funded collectively by tax dollars. In the United States, the people long ago decided to do together what they could not afford to accomplish separately. The freedom, rightly and well highlighted in the video, to pursue ones ambitions, are not purchased without significant investment, and making that investment is a collective enterprise. We have lost sight of that, it seems to me. We have allowed the wealthy to forget that the ground on which they build and the roads on which they drive are public resources only possible because of the will of the people. And, above all, that the freedom they enjoy was, and remains, purchased by the treasure of all Americans. The cause of the tremendous increase in wealth inequality over the last 40 years, a subject meriting separate consideration of urgent character, has been a gradual shift of political influence from the larger bulk of the population to a much smaller, very rich few. The mechanism has been largely that of tax policy changes (although many other critical mechanisms meant to nurture the American middle class have been successfully targeted) and the consequence has been government spending deficits, and among other things, a steady decline in government funding of basic research, university support, grants for scientific inquiry, etc. By way of example, just look at NASA and space exploration. The technology to establish a base on the moon, and nearly that necessary to put people on Mars, has been around for decades. And while the blunting of expectations for space exploration has several causes, funding shortages have been the most debilitating factor hamstringing national ambitions. Ambitions the results of which were considered inevitable only a generation or two ago. But the drastic defunding of NASA, associated organizations and industries is but the tip of a very large iceberg. The discoveries that enabled, fueled, and arose from all the scientific disciplines involved in space research are only a small part of those which have contributed to our technological progress. And all of this leaching of public resources has come of the desire of a rich few to retain more, much more, of the wealth they have acquired. Of course, to keep more, they must contribute less. And those reductions have been at the expense of everyone else. So, not only are fewer people able to afford the latest tech (early adoption actually goes down, not up, as inequality grows) but for those many who can still afford it, there are fewer and fewer "breakthroughs" to purchase. Manufacturers, increasingly bereft of new technology ultimately dependent on government-funded basic and applied research, rather desperately churn out incremental "improvements" of old technologies, often without generating much public enthusiasm. Clever marketing attempts obfuscate the lackluster reality, urging us to buy "exciting, breakthrough" items that are - at best - just incremental improvements on decades old-products. How long have top consumer computer processor speeds been moribund? Is it really a breakthrough to roll out 9.2 surround sound, after 9.1, 7.2, etc? Yes, the images provided by first HD televisions were noticeably sharper and more beautiful then CRT TVs, and the sets took up less space. But they are still just...televisions. What about the contributions of the visionary, vastly wealthy entrepreneur? What about, since I went on about NASA, Elon Musk and Space X? Yes, Musk is pushing an exciting idea using wealth he has gathered largely via his own ambitions. But what is the vision for space X? What new technologies is it developing? If it works, Space X will provide heavy lift capability for carrying materials into orbit. Using rockets. If that sounds familiar, it's because NASA was doing that, and far more, 50 years ago. Oh, and Space X is to carry tourists into orbit. Rich tourists. Using Rockets. Thank goodness for wealth inequality, driving such exciting innovations. There is of course far more to these arguments, and many more salient examples. How about self-driving cars? Great! They will hopefully save thousands of lives every year. And they will strip about three-million Americans of their jobs, re-directing that money into the pockets of those who will own the fleets of autonomous vehicles. But aren't they at least new technology? No, they are sideways extensions of existing technologies, refined and applied to a different market. What about consumer quadcopters/drones? Again, no. Military research funded largely by DARPA, and overwhelmingly commercialized via middle-class hobbyists, not the beneficiaries of wealth inequality. All of these examples and more force the thesis of the video into a state of rapid decomposition. It is a superficially plausible point that cannot be maintained under even the slightest scrutiny. However all of this may point fingers, the fact is, the very wealthy are not evil. They just cannot help themselves. They cannot stop seeing the world in zero-sum terms, or stop hoarding resources like children eating cookies. They don't intend their impossible-to-spend fortunes to destabilize entire economies when awkwardly stuffed into markets like housing, junk bonds, derivatives, or the internet, that become bubbles as a consequence. Like the rest of us, they are at the mercy of unconscious instincts. They see themselves as deserving, wise, and the only people capable of responsible use of vast resources. Regrettably, they often screw up, just like the rest of us. They think in the short term, can't grasp the big picture, cling to long-and-vigorously disproven fantasies of markets, invisible hands, even-playing fields and meritocracy. And like all of us, they are incapable of recognizing the ways they will leave the world worse than they found it. Whether or not a waitress can afford a selfie-drone or a trip into the stratosphere. The only difference is, they have the power, via ever-exploding levels of inequality, to do far more damage than the rest of us.

“Socialism is based” -PragerU

"...and your own life proves it!"

This video should be called "Why capitalism is good."

He makes it sound all good with his sugar coating method of saying be grateful, but the real question people want answered out of this is, "How can I get out of my poor situation?" Whether income inequality exists or not, I don't care. I just don't want to be on the poor side of it. Anyone who identifies with this idea, take the time to read or listen to "The Richest Man In Babylon" The best beginner book you will ever read on the subject.

“The existence of the wealthy is what matters most.” I hope I don’t have to point out what is wrong with this sentence.

What happens when a few individuals own almost all the wealth of an entire economy? Is it still good then?

I'm glad those hardworking rich people who had the drive to be born unimaginably wealthy get to benefit from new tech years before I do, Yep I am grateful for that.

1. Not all people, even in the United States have equal opportunities. Offsprings of rich families usually becoming rich, from poor families - poor. In overwhelming percentages. 2. Yes, our average standard of living gradually is improving, but for enormous environmental costs. And it would be unstable. 3. The richest 1% get so much in many cases in the cost of poor people. 4. The richest people mostly not inventors and entrepreneurs. They are financial moguls, which contribution to society is not univocal.

“You are free to pursue a path in life that you believe best suits your talents” Then why is it in 1970 to pay off the annual tuition for Yale it took only 4 daily hours at a minimum wage Job while now it takes more than 17 hours daily at a minimum wage job for the same university. Where in real terms annual tuition for that university has increased from 15,000 to 45,000. Not very “free” if you are under a crushing amount of debt from loans tantamount to usury to “pursue a path in life that you believe best suits your talents”

Income inequality is what motivates us to be more productive and do our best. Income inequality doesn't mean people are living in different castes. Even if everyone had the exact same inborn talent, the exact same luck, and the exact same upbringing, America would still have tremendous income inequality because people are constantly entering and exiting certain brackets.

Inequity is good until you find yourself in a revolution.

as long as those people pay their taxes

If I were teaching someone how to construct propagandistic arguments that ignore things like "context," "complexity," and "data," I would show them this video.

Cherry-picking of facts and presenting them as arguments. It just made so much sense. No one argues that a persons hardwork should be rewarded, but the question what is the right reward for it. Is luck at play, is crony capitalism is at play.

bow down to the rich because WE KNOW WHATS BEST FOR YOU

A socialist sees a mansion and says "no one should live like that". A capitalist sees a mansion and says "everyone should live like that".

"The door to the top 1% is always open" yet the poor stay poor because of disadvantages such as having to choose between working full day to live or going to school and dying on your way. "The door to the top 1% is always open" yet the only way to enter from that door is by bringing the rest of the world down, using forced labour, or using power and injustice. "The door to the top 1% is always open" yet most people are too oppressed by their government and/or people of power and aren't even able to move one step before being dragged back down claiming that 'that place doesnt accept people like'

My experience has been that those who tout "the free market" the most are the ones who subject themselves to it the least!

Motorola made the first phone in 1973, not 1983.

Overly simplistic and overlooks the nuances of our own economy, which is to say we don't have a free market economy. Not saying a government managed economy is the way to go, it isn't, but we do have wealthy have more influence in the greater economy than they should and therefore make it less free or more unfree. It's a softer version of the government playing favorites. If a free market is so good, why can't they let it be free?Overly simplistic and overlooks the nuances of our own economy, which is to say we don't have a free market economy. Not saying a government managed economy is the way to go, it isn't, but we do have wealthy have more influence in the greater economy than they should and therefore make it less free or more unfree. It's a softer version of the government playing favorites. If a free market is so good, why can't they let it be free? For instance, hypothetically, Tyson foods may send vans to the border to collect illegal immigrants to work in their plants at a cheaper rate than citizens. Politicians/bureaucrats overlook this because they are getting PAC, lobbying money and possibly their family gets jobs at some company in return. How can the average joe compete with this? At some point, the acquisition of wealth leverages political power that favors gaining more wealth that even other less wealthy wealthy can't compete against. It's economic hegemony. That's not free market and yet it's what exists in this country, increasingly so. What you call free market has become corporatism/crony capitalism and that will push people into the arms of socialism. Like Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others. Until that is fixed, the free market is a fantasy and a lie.

Here's a man in a suit selling you a concept that will profit him alone. He wears a suit. He's rich. He doesn't need to worry about meeting ends at the end of the month. He's rich, so of course he'll say income inequality is good. He'd hate to see that change ;)

our gini coefficient was increased to 22 now. i'm losing some sleeps but thanks to this video now i know our economy is getting better despite our gdp per capita going nowhere

Products made for the rich don't come down in price. If that were the case why are Lamborghini's and Ferrari's so expensive still? Technology came down in cost because the rich determined that training the masses from an early age to use technology would help them reduce the employees they have to pay. They also don't want to invest any money in training employees anymore. The rich are doing everything hey can to increase the wealth gap. I don't believe they are bad people for doing this, only inconsiderate. They just want to give their children the best chance in life, as everyone else does.

This video misses the point. People are not upset about the concept of income inequality, but that a huge percentage of the population don't have the same opportunity in the first place to achieve their goals. The income inequality gap between the rich and poor has become so massive, that the chance of any working class person to have a "normal life", let alone become rich, is becoming smaller and smaller. This is like saying, hey, we all play a game of cards, and who ever wins this round, will earn the most money, except the poor are not allowed to play in the first place. We all understand the concept that income inequality is based on what career path we choose, but if 30% of the population is so poor, they can't even afford education to start a career, and meanwhile the super rich just sit back and don't have to lift a finger and earn billions... then no, income inequality is no longer a good thhing. Many people are so poor that their entire live focuses on surviving every single day and be able to provide food for their family. Often these people started out like that, and didn't even have a proper education. So yes, this video talks around the actual issue. PragerU, you once again disappoint me.

you're not allowed to not work thanks to wealth inequality. you have to work for some billionaire's wealth or not at all in most cases.

Your videos are always gonna be free it's youtube

It's sad that we are not in a truly free society. :(

meanwhile 40% of americans are currently living off of food stamps

An aristocracy is not a capitalist society...

The reason things got cheaper was not because of entrepreneurs it’s because workers found ways to make things cheaper

Skimmed over a lot of important shit to reach that conclusion

I can't wait until a modest million dollar home in a decent neighborhood becomes affordable.

No words on the gini coefficient and its relationship to crimes?

Nobody is arguing that there shouldn’t be any income inequality. Okay, yes, some idiots are, but that crowd at the beginning of the video is arguing for a smaller gap of inequality, not an elimination of it. We thrive off of rich people, but that doesn’t mean we have to be dirt poor.

Can't wait 'til Ferraris become affordable to all!

When your rich father payed your way through college and you become an "economist"

10th grader here! I'm currently typing out 2 paragraphs explaining the importance of income equality and how it can affect millions of Americans.. did you know the the rich population is 1% but did you know the china makes up more of income equality than America and that rare has increased I know crazy right?!

At first I didn't see the first word and thought the claim was ridiculous. Then I read the first word and thought the claim was ridiculous.

Despite all talk about a roof that limits human potental, so is the social mobility better in many countries that are more equal than America. And equal countries tend to have lower crime rates, fewer teenage pregancier, longer life expenctancy, less drug abuse, fewer people with depressions, less obeasity, and people feel as a part of a country and one society instead of just identifying themselves with people of their own kind of class. Without a broad base of consumers you can't massproduce stuff cheaply either. Don'tget my wrong, I am all for taxing hard working people low. Thats why I want a high tax on capital so the tax on labour could be kept at a minimum.

hey from kurdistan..i watch videos to improve my english ability ..

100% of the people who disliked the video either: 1 - Didn't watch the video 2 - Didn't understand the video

This was probably the only pragerU video that I did not agree on. The fact the whatever good gets cheaper isnt only because it was bought by a rich person in the past. The income inequality especially concerns me as automation is starting to take over highly skilled jobs like doctors, lawyers and etc..

>Dell >Incredible I shit my pants laughing.

I did the rags (literally) to riches thing and am now in the 1%. My issue with wealth inequality is with inheritance. A common wisdom is that "it takes money to make money". This is literally true. Size matters. It happens with money, websites, trees, wild fish, etc. Because something gets big, it has bigger opportunities and less risk. That is a generalization, of course, but it certainly applies to wealth. It is much more difficult to go from $0 to $100,000, than from $1,000,000 to $1,100,000. That is why I am totally opposed to the elimination of inheritance taxes, or what old money likes to call "death taxes." I made my money the old fashioned way - I earned it. My children were given the best advantages I could offer - best schools, networking opportunities, no student debt, etc. - but they were also told while children that they would get nothing from me after college or when I die. I am proud to say they are all successful. Wealthy parents offer advantages to their children, and there is nothing wrong with that. But I do not want to see an American aristocracy emerge. The remedy is inheritance taxes. As a people we have never answered the question, "What is the most amount of wealth a person should inherit?" And we have let the rich focus our attention on fairness - make the "death tax" the same for everyone, preferably zero. Nonsense. The rule should be something like, "Below some limit, say $5,000,000, no tax. Above some threshold, say $20,000,000, a 100% tax. (Your kids can't live on $20,000,000?) In between we can argue about the details.

People just saw the title and opened the video and immediately gave a dislike and didn't watch the video.

I like how most people just downvoted this video without even seeing what they said lol

We do not live in a free market society. This is not only because of all the subsidies, social programs and tax loopholes, but also because of information. Yes, a truly free market society assumes the same information is possessed by everyone - this is what economists base their theories. However, when information is better for a certain group (the 1%), that group can take advantage of others. This is represented through lower wages compared to value of the work. There should not be any ceiling for earnings, but something must be done about the information gap and how the 1% exploit it for their own gain. Originally unions had this motivation but have since become corrupt bureaucracies themselves that protect their own interests, not the workers. Despite what this video says, there is a problem.

devil's advocate: the problem with “unequal wealth” is that wealth translates to power; that is, the “1%” can use their wealth to lobby for laws favorable to them - and unfavorable to everyone else. That is, the problem isn't an abstract notion of fairness; it's a very real notion of influence. I don't want “the rich” dictating how I live my life any more than I want the government doing so. This is the only argument I've seen for why income inequality is bad for which I don't have an immediate counter. Advice?

a $4000 phone in 1983 is equivalent to a $10,563 phone today. That isn't much money, you certainly don't have to be in the richest 1% to make that purchase

We don’t want income equality. We want to survive without going into debt.

"If someone told you that your ambition had limits. There is a ceiling above which you cannot rise. I doubt you'd be happy about it." Yes, and isn't that exactly the point? For the person born to a wealthy family with a good upbringing the sky is the limit. For the person born to a broke family and raised with a troubled upbringing there is a clear restriction placed on their ability to obtain success. A person born to a rich, happy family needs to be hard working to do well in life. A person born to a broke, troubled family has to be absolutely exceptional in their abilities or extremely lucky to do well in life. That's what income inequality is about. Not that some have more than others. That some have significantly less opportunities than others. This video was very misleading

Income inequality isn't inherently negative, the problem comes when the disparity begins to cause pain to hard working responsible people.

yo, does working a minimum wage job best suit my talents as an individual? does it help me further my education to work toward a job that does? i think not

Why do so many people put thumb down on that video? It sounds 100% accurate to me. Also, keep in mind that the top 1% richest people only spend a small fraction of their wealth purchasing goods and services wich is a GOOD thing. If we took all the money from the richest 1% and gave it to the bottom 50%, it would only create more inflation.

Here is some food for thought for the majority of users and which is heavily underestimated or just unknown to most. Income inequality is commonly attributed to what is called the "Education race" ( Nobel prize winner economist Jan tinbergen). This basically means that, as economies and societies modernize and advance technologically, there is a higher need for skilled workers. This seems straightforward, but it has implications for income inequality. If your stock of college/university graduates does not keep up with the increase in demand, the economic value of a degree actually increases. It's actually proven that college graduate to high school graduate incomes in america have seen a larger growing gap over the decades, not to talk about higher degrees. Coupled with the decreases in educational spendings and rising premiums for higher educations, you will see top percentiles of incomes increase over time and thus income inequality increasing. Now to say that everyone has equal opportunities is naive. In fact, Income inequality in america is currently higher than any developed european country. The myth that there is high intergenerational mobility of income in america is also a lie. America intergenerational earning elasticity is significantly lower than the 13 richest european countries according to OECD data. So heres the cycle : two of the strongest predictors of children’s ultimate educational attainment are parental education and parental earnings. Coupled with the increasing return of investment on higher educational degrees, you will find inequality actually increasing over time and elasticity decreasing even further. Thanks for reading, share your thoughts. If you require sources, I'll be happy to provide. Main theory is based on Pikkety and Saez, and work by David Autor ( MIT professor).

Here in Denmark, we have one of the lowest levels of income equallity, and we have been named the happiest country on earth

Income inequality is fine but the gap shouldn't be too big

Why so many dislikes?! Why would people want something they don't work for and don't deserve? What makes people think that equality of income would be fair? If it would be good for some it would be bad for others, so where's the equality on this? People hate on rich people, but they are the ones paying the poor money and giving jobs. Not to mention that they usually worked a tremendous amount for what they have.

Capitalism has it's flaws, but I'd rather have Capitalism and work on those flaws than have communism or socialism.

The problem with income inequality in the 21st century is that it is becoming more and more a product of monetary policy rather than classical economics. Today's fiat money is debt. The debtor is the slave of the creditor. Why should an elite set of money creators even have the right to exist in a pure market economy? This is why a metallic monetary standard is a prerequisite to true economic freedom.

Someone get this man some fava beans and a nice Chianti

I'm sorry but your arguments just doesn't hold up. You cannot achieve your dreams if you are born poor, or to a violent family. The simple truth is that most of those who achieve success are already born successful.