Thats bs...it says right in the article that the payout for a trailer truck accident can be a million usd. Pretty sure that is a major attraction to the 25% of NO that lives in poverty.
So, how about the dozens of lawyers and doctors in the story? You know, the ones who made 90% of the money and never got charged? The ones who set the whole thing up because they knew they could convince desperate & uneducated people? The ones who orchestrated a murder (the thing that finally got two of them caught)?
What're their "traits?" Did you even read the article?
We must be talking at odds here. I'm neither claiming that being ethical is a sufficient condition to getting rich, nor that the ethics of the poor people described in the article played a significant part in their being and remaining poor. The article seems replete with unethical behavior at every level of wealth.
> the American shift from “a hard day’s work for fair pay” to what I’m calling the lottery economy
My point is that people with high time preference and low impulse control, who naturally will tend to be poorer than people without those traits, will also naturally be more drawn to the "lottery economy", whether or not bad actors exist who will take advantage of that. Just look at who buys literal lottery tickets!
The people who are behind this scam chose the east side of N.O. because poor people are desperate, not cause they have bad judgement. They could have found other people but why bother?