This bit resonated.
It makes me so terribly sad that in a society such as ours the wealthy keep creating new means to harm the less lucky.
That aside, Alan Kholer has also opined in the past that our economics policy is based on disdain.
I know many will read my financial experiences and see failure. I haven’t failed; I succeeded when the odds were totally stacked against me. I made good what life threw at me. I survived … with my values intact.
I can only agree.
Are you being bad faith or genuinely confused here?
You’ll need to be more specific with your questioning.
Do we agree that choices are not free? That the set of choices available to someone is determined by precededing moments, a chain of which extends back well beyond anything a person could be held not merely responsible for but indeed capable of having any influence over at all?
You seem to be misunderstanding the point I am making. I am not arguing that the only thing that dictates wealth are the decisions of the individual. I am arguing that the decisions of the individual contribute to their wealth. Maybe you see the world from a determinist mindset, but I certainly don’t. There are always choices we can make about how we choose to live. Sometimes these require sacrifices, such as the choice to not have 7 children.