[typewithrhythm]

I think we (Australians) have a real lack of effort=success stories to draw from; if someone has wealth it was probably inherited.

In the US if you have wealth it's plausible that you had a great idea that got acquired, or a great skill.

[dsr_]

In the US, the most likely cause of someone being wealthy is that their parents were wealthy.

But almost every wealthy American tells a story about how they did it by themselves, ignoring the schools that they attended, the services which were available to them, the people their parents associated with, and the ability to make high-risk investments because they had a built-in security net.

[missedthecue]

80% of US millionaires are first generation

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Yet economic mobility, measured in terms of the likelihood that you die in a different income decile than you were born into, is lower in the USA than almost anywhere else in the developed world.

How to reconcile? It's fairly easy ... there aren't that many millionaires. The US has a society, culture and economy that allows for their occurence perhaps "better" than most other places. But this doesn't reflect the likely economic pathway that most of the population experiences in life.

[pb7]

The deciles are much further apart and the ceiling is massive. Compare the medians of all the countries (the US is at or near the top) then compare the 90th percentile and the US is heads and shoulders over the next highest.

[missedthecue]

1 in 12 Americans are millionaires.

[hetman]

Which proves that talking about millionaires is no longer that socially relevant thanks to inflation. Somehow ten-millionaire doesn't have quite that ring though.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

So what? Economic mobility measurements remain vastly more indicative of the experience of 11 in 12 Americans.

America is good at generating millionaires (which ain't what it used to be)! News at 11!

[defrost]

There are many examples of Australians that have started middle class or even poorer and become wealthy (multi millionaires, a few billionaires) through their own business efforts.

What's lacking is a general habit of boasting about this, being wealthy, letting others in the country (ie. yourself) know about it.

You can find first generation pretty wealthy Australians in trucking, factory ownership, real estate, mining, warehouse volume sales, etc. Of those the ones most likely to be flash about their cash would be the real estate crowd, success in house sales is hard to come by without prominent self promotion.

[typewithrhythm]

Sure, I don't disagree that they exist as people, but as prominent stories in the culture they generally don't; outside of Lindsey fox I can't think of any...

Real estate wealth is a bit prominent, bit doesn't really have the same tone as designing or building something, more a reflection of our current dirt obsession.

[intelVISA]

Great ideas are worth approx $0