[lm28469]

It's not impossible, but it's statistically unlikely.

> If we were able to make those decisions, why is it that other people can’t?

Because we all come from widely different backgrounds, families, education, get different opportunities, make different choices, &c. It's easy to compare people's lives to our own stories but you can't sum up everything with "if I made it everyone can make it", there are so many variables, the majority of which we can't understand before going through them ourselves.

Regardless of that, if I was part of the 10% or 15% of American below the poverty threshold and you told me "just move to Austria, anyone can make it" I don't think I would take it well

Of course you'll always find people who manage to drastically change their lives, but I'm personally not really interested in the edge case. Btw I started searching about social mobility and found this, which supports social mobility in the US is pretty poor https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-social-mobility-...