[freemint]

> Have you considered that you have the causality flipped, and that people are generally rich because they're good at making money under adverse conditions?

They might have. However any look at generational wealth dynamics quickly dispels that idea. Any above market performance rich people have are simply able to have better managers because managing bigger pools pays more and maybe an education which focuses on maintaining and building wealth. This education could be widely available but it is not made widely available. I am not going to imply a conspiracy here or appeal to class interests for explanation and just leave it as a statement of fact.

[wyager]

> However any look at generational wealth dynamics quickly dispels that idea

Generational wealth statistics, as well as heritability research, are consistent with the idea that expected wealth is causally preceded by genetically heritable factors.

Wealth is mean-reverting along genetic lines on multi-generational timescales. The idea that wealth is self-perpetuating per se fails to explain the degree to which e.g. poor lottery winners do not kick off dynasties, why children of moderately wealthy parents also tend to be moderately wealthy (not explainable by direct inheritance), etc.

The one domain where your model works better is perhaps for extremely wealthy families like the Rockefellers, but I'm hesitant to say that the model generalizes - that sort of thing might be a rare exception.

[staticman2]

Unless a child is put up for adoption they will inheret a lot more than genetics and money from their parents.

For example: The child of a doctor or lawyer is much more likely to be pressured or encouraged to go into law or medicine.

[wyager]

> Unless a child is put up for adoption

They have, of course, tested this as well.

[staticman2]

Which is neither here nor there.

If you don't understand that the child of a lawyer will be encouraged or pressured into going into law, and therefore staying in the socioeconomic group, you'll overrate genetic factors.

[wyager]

The genetic factors estimates come only from adoption data, and there are studies that condition further on things like adoptive parent material conditions. The researchers are not dumb; they have put some thought into it.

[staticman2]

One of the first results on google scholar that came up when I checked into your claims is a recent study that contradicts everything you wrote here. (Since you never cited anything I won't either.)

At a minimum, this topic is more complicated than you think, and you aren't using the correct statistical terminology when you discuss it.