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biccat wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:Fortunately for the millions that can't, we don't set evidence based economic policy on what forums poster frazzled has personally seen.

Is there some objective measure we can use to separate out "those who can't" repay their students loans from "those who don't want to" repay?

If so, why did we give them student loans in the first place? If not, why should we give "those who don't want to" a free ride?

We don't need an objective measure, we just need to treat the student loans just like any other loans. Bankruptcy should still work, the FDCPA should still apply, etc etc etc. Allowing people to declare bankruptcy is anything but a "free ride".

If anything, it provides a very necessary market force to keep lenders from being dicks. If you can't pay, they have an interest in allowing you to pay what you can because if they don't, you declare bankruptcy and they get pennies on the dollar. Without bankruptcy, a lender has NO INCENTIVE to be fair to the borrower whatsoever.

If someone just doesn't want to pay, bankruptcy will liquidate their assets to pay the lender. Basically bankruptcy only works if you actually cannot pay.

This is the system we have in place for all loans for a long time. The student loan industry basically lobbied to have the protection removed from ONLY student loans, as though they're different somehow. It's still a loan, it should still work the exact same way.

halonachos wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

halonachos wrote:

biccat wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:Fortunately for the millions that can't, we don't set evidence based economic policy on what forums poster frazzled has personally seen.

Is there some objective measure we can use to separate out "those who can't" repay their students loans from "those who don't want to" repay?

If so, why did we give them student loans in the first place? If not, why should we give "those who don't want to" a free ride?

Why should we use money, why can't we barter for an education. I'm sure that a state college education is worth about 200 chickens or maybe 300 bushels of barley.

220. It went up this year.

Gosh darn it, guess I'm just going to have to make the extra 20 up with carrots.

We offered 20 lb of wiener dog fertilizer. We've not heard back yet. TBone's willing to part with his old teeth removed when he had his surgery, or to help with the university's squirrel problem (someone will have to point him to the right tree though).

Rented Tritium wrote:We don't need an objective measure, we just need to treat the student loans just like any other loans. Bankruptcy should still work, the FDCPA should still apply, etc etc etc. Allowing people to declare bankruptcy is anything but a "free ride".

The problem is that student loan debt really is crushing when you're early in your career and have very little assets or income. Basically a perfect time to declare bankruptcy.

The only thing that prevents this type of behavior (taking out huge loans and immediately declaring bankruptcy) is a lender's discretion, which the government tends to lack.

biccat wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:We don't need an objective measure, we just need to treat the student loans just like any other loans. Bankruptcy should still work, the FDCPA should still apply, etc etc etc. Allowing people to declare bankruptcy is anything but a "free ride".

The problem is that student loan debt really is crushing when you're early in your career and have very little assets or income. Basically a perfect time to declare bankruptcy.

The only thing that prevents this type of behavior (taking out huge loans and immediately declaring bankruptcy) is a lender's discretion, which the government tends to lack.

You are aware that the government (until veeeery recently) does not actually issue student loans, right? They guarantee them, but they do not issue or service them. The direct program was TINY until 2010 and this problem is not new. If the issue were entirely about lender discretion, it would be a new problem that started in 2010.

The problems with student loans are worth their own thread honestly.

Which explains why you suddenly can't get rid of them in bankruptcy. You can't cheat the Royal of taxes or, evidently, student loans.

Remember girls, in many jurisidictions child support payments are not dischargeable either.

Frazzled wrote:Which explains why you suddenly can't get rid of them in bankruptcy. You can't cheat the Royal of taxes or, evidently, student loans.

Remember girls, in many jurisidictions child support payments are not dischargeable either.

Except that the change that allowed this was part of a law to PRIVATIZE the loans. The fact that the government is benefiting from it now does not change the fact that it was originally enacted to help big business. You can't reinvent the narrative to make this all about the big evil government when it was Chase's lobbyists that made it happen.

Frazzled wrote:

This thread will be filled by lots of liberal handwringing, attacks against Republicans, and cries thats its all Bush's fault. Obama will be hailed as a living saint, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or alternatively a commie pinko socialist hellbent on destroying the US. Biccat will counterattack and get flamed. Frazzled will post nonsense or something about wiener dogs. Dogma will argue about word choices. Cannerus may or may not post about important matters of the heart, and motorcyle repair. If Malf posts, lots of socks will mysteriously disappear.

Just like how the US government works huh?

I mean, how it doesn't work.

Rented Tritium wrote:You are aware that the government (until veeeery recently) does not actually issue student loans, right? They guarantee them, but they do not issue or service them.

Do you know what it means to guarantee a loan?

If so, why would you be surprised that the government would not allow them to be discharged in bankruptcy?

Rented Tritium wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Which explains why you suddenly can't get rid of them in bankruptcy. You can't cheat the Royal of taxes or, evidently, student loans.

Remember girls, in many jurisidictions child support payments are not dischargeable either.

Except that the change that allowed this was part of a law to PRIVATIZE the loans. The fact that the government is benefiting from it now does not change the fact that it was originally enacted to help big business. You can't reinvent the narrative to make this all about the big evil government when it was Chase's lobbyists that made it happen.

Well, back when dinosaurs roamed the loans were private and backed by Uncle Sam, but still dischargeable. When did this occur?

Frazzled wrote:Frankly I've never seen anyone give a about their student loans. Most I have known have paid theirs off, but others didn't with no negative consequence.

You don't know many students then do ya?

Most of my teachers are worried about it quite a damned lot. Many have long since graduated.

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Frankly I've never seen anyone give a about their student loans. Most I have known have paid theirs off, but others didn't with no negative consequence.

You don't know many students then do ya?

Most of my teachers are worried about it quite a damned lot. Many have long since graduated.

Yes actually, but we all have kids and...er...grandkids so its not much of an issue at this point.

An interesting internet primer I found on the subject.
http://www.studentloanborrowerassistance.org/bankruptcy/

Frazzled wrote:Well, back when dinosaurs roamed the loans were private and backed by Uncle Sam, but still dischargeable. When did this occur?

Umm...1978.

Let me know if you want me to edit that. Because graduating college ~1978 would make you old as dirt.

Yeah here's the part where we meet around the other side of the issue and agree. If it were up to me, we'd end the federal student loan programs. They're definitely a big part of the problem.

Like I said, though, it's worth its own thread. My position is that the education market is degenerate and has no functional market forces and needs to get disentangled from the banking industry.

Rented Tritium wrote:Yeah here's the part where we meet around the other side of the issue and agree. If it were up to me, we'd end the federal student loan programs. They're definitely a big part of the problem.

Like I said, though, it's worth its own thread.

Indeed.

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the idea of making student loans dischargable in bankruptcy. But I think you would see dramatic increases in interest rates and loan availability if that were so. Rather than having the desired effect of weeding out those who can't or shouldn't go to college, it would likely make a college more of an upper- and upper-middle class privilege.

halonachos wrote:
@AlmightyWalrus: Nobody cries when a rich person loses their income, nobody cried out when Michael Jackson went bankrupt. It seems that its only when the average joe goes bankrupt that anyone ever cares.

No, people don't cry when rich people go bankrupt because they have way bigger margins than (relatively) poor. As such, people assume that the rich person fethed up and didn't have some cash stowed away for an emergency. People do become upset when those who have a hard time are hit because getting more troubles when you're already troubled is perceived as unfair.

halonachos wrote:
So unless a rich person spends themselves into oblivion and you back them up then I don't want to hear from you.

Tough gak. Freedom of speech and all that, no one's forcing you to listen to me. I myself would prefer that you didn't come across as so angry, but I can't force you, so I'll ask you politely: will you please calm down?

@biccat: I should have clearly defined that as "current or proposed "loophole-free" systems". My bad.
EDIT: How would expunging student loans upon bancruptcy restrict it to an middle/upper class only privilege? Seems to me that this would allow lowerclass families to not have to worry about being haunted by debt years later in case of severe financial hardships.

@halonachos: I'm curious what other countries use this system, since I've never heard of it as a complete substitute to taxes before now.

Btw, for anyone interested, going by chicken being worth $0.89 per lb, and college costing on average $30420 for 4 years, it'd cost you about 8337 6-week-old Broiler chickens (4.1 lbs on average) to pay for your education, at about 21 chickens per hour of edumacation.

biccat wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:Yeah here's the part where we meet around the other side of the issue and agree. If it were up to me, we'd end the federal student loan programs. They're definitely a big part of the problem.

Like I said, though, it's worth its own thread.

Indeed.

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the idea of making student loans dischargable in bankruptcy. But I think you would see dramatic increases in interest rates and loan availability if that were so. Rather than having the desired effect of weeding out those who can't or shouldn't go to college, it would likely make a college more of an upper- and upper-middle class privilege.

Well, my thinking is that the federal guarantee is driving the cost up in the first place, since a school can increase tuition year after year and the loans keep getting paid no matter what. Lack of rational equilibrium pricing on education is hurting everyone. One would imagine that once the price gets coupled with reality, the schools would start to separate into expensive but good and cheap and less good.

While this sounds sucky at first glance, I would MUCH RATHER a poor person be able to afford a cheap school outright than sell their soul to go to ANY school.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

halonachos wrote:
@AlmightyWalrus: Nobody cries when a rich person loses their income, nobody cried out when Michael Jackson went bankrupt. It seems that its only when the average joe goes bankrupt that anyone ever cares.

No, people don't cry when rich people go bankrupt because they have way bigger margins than (relatively) poor. As such, people assume that the rich person fethed up and didn't have some cash stowed away for an emergency. People do become upset when those who have a hard time are hit because getting more troubles when you're already troubled is perceived as unfair.

halonachos wrote:
So unless a rich person spends themselves into oblivion and you back them up then I don't want to hear from you.

Tough gak. Freedom of speech and all that, no one's forcing you to listen to me. I myself would prefer that you didn't come across as so angry, but I can't force you, so I'll ask you politely: will you please calm down?

Well, I'm not angry and the internet is a horrible way to show one's actual feelings and demeanor. People can screw up no matter what they start with and I don't care if you're poor or rich because if you mess up its always your own fault. If a poor person loses all of his money and goes bankrupt chances are he did something to put himself in that situation. People cry over the poor for some reason and feel like giving them tax deductions or giving them money is going to help, well it obviously hasn't seeing as though there are still poor people around. People need to stop coddling the poor and giving them handouts, give a man a fish feed him for a day and all.

As my dad says "Life's tough, its tougher if you're stupid.".

halonachos wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

halonachos wrote:
@AlmightyWalrus: Nobody cries when a rich person loses their income, nobody cried out when Michael Jackson went bankrupt. It seems that its only when the average joe goes bankrupt that anyone ever cares.

No, people don't cry when rich people go bankrupt because they have way bigger margins than (relatively) poor. As such, people assume that the rich person fethed up and didn't have some cash stowed away for an emergency. People do become upset when those who have a hard time are hit because getting more troubles when you're already troubled is perceived as unfair.

halonachos wrote:
So unless a rich person spends themselves into oblivion and you back them up then I don't want to hear from you.

Tough gak. Freedom of speech and all that, no one's forcing you to listen to me. I myself would prefer that you didn't come across as so angry, but I can't force you, so I'll ask you politely: will you please calm down?

Well, I'm not angry and the internet is a horrible way to show one's actual feelings and demeanor. People can screw up no matter what they start with and I don't care if you're poor or rich because if you mess up its always your own fault. If a poor person loses all of his money and goes bankrupt chances are he did something to put himself in that situation. People cry over the poor for some reason and feel like giving them tax deductions or giving them money is going to help, well it obviously hasn't seeing as though there are still poor people around. People need to stop coddling the poor and giving them handouts, give a man a fish feed him for a day and all.

As my dad says "Life's tough, its tougher if you're stupid.".

When you are poor, risks are higher and rewards are lower. A single mistake can completely ruin a poor person, while a rich person can shrug off a dozen mistakes. When you are 1 flat tire away from losing everything, your risk is MUCH higher than someone with 100k in the bank.

It's not coddling, it's econ 101. More money makes more money. Even more than that, in very large sample sizes, you start to find that larger individual investments begin to have higher RATES of return. Not just gross returns, but RATES that are higher just because the buy in was higher. Returns and risk are not linear. Seriously this is econ 101.

That's not even COUNTING the people who are past the work break point. There's a point where you have enough net worth that you no longer need to do any actual work to sustain an above average standard of living. You are saying we should treat THOSE people the same as the guy who can't afford to stay home sick?

Like, your example is michael jackson? He raped kids and still got to die with a massive mansion and very high quality of life. Even in BANKRUPTCY, he was high rollin compared to the poor. If the average joe raped kids, maybe we could have something to talk about.

darkPrince010 wrote:@biccat: I should have clearly defined that as "current or proposed "loophole-free" systems". My bad.

Ah, that makes more sense then.

darkPrince010 wrote:How would expunging student loans upon bancruptcy restrict it to an middle/upper class only privilege? Seems to me that this would allow lowerclass families to not have to worry about being haunted by debt years later in case of severe financial hardships.

First, we'll assume that this is in light of a private lender. The government acting as a lender will not have the same behavior.

When you loan out money, whether for a house, a car, or an education, you give the other person an interest rate that reflects the chance of repayment or recovery. If a bank loans out $1,000,000 and can expect to lose $100,000 to losses then they need to price those loans so that they make up for their losses. If student loans cannot be discharged then the rate of repayment is higher. Sure you're going to have some deadbeats, but you can sell off those loans to collection agencies or keep hounding them until they pay, maybe they'll get a good job later on and will be able to pay. But when you make student loans dischargable the potential for loss is increased. Instead of becoming non-paying deadbeats (either for 10 years or forever), some of them will discharge their loans. With a higher rate of losses, a lender needs to charge a higher rate in order to ensure that they make up for the losses. This is why home loans are relatively low (high credit requirements + the ability to foreclose on your house) while credit card loans are high (unsecured and a high rate of default).

Private, unsubsidized student loans will have a higher interest rate, making them less affordable to people who will only see a marginal increase in income. But tuition would decrease (because it's not as easy to get money), allowing for those who pay cash to still get a good education.

darkPrince010 wrote:
@halonachos: I'm curious what other countries use this system, since I've never heard of it as a complete substitute to taxes before now.

Not sure, I don't know the inner workings of the tax systems for every country in the world. The one thing I do know is that there are people pushing to replace income tax with a VAT or retail tax. A lot of people want the VAT tax, and cite the difference between AGI and spending over the years. The spending of individuals tend to remain somewhat constant in relation to the AGI which can fluctuate wildly at times.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@rented the whole MJ raping kids thing has no room in this at all.

The poor made poor decisions in most cases and the rich often made better decisions. We should reward hard work and tell those not working hard enough to work harder and if a guy worked hard enough that he earned enough that he doesn't have to work anymore then good for him, he won the game of life. If a person is disabled and unable to work then they will get benefits because of it, how many times do I have to fething say that for you to fething understand?

But no, you're not 'investing' in the poor when you hand them money. Now if you gave them a fething bank fund that they couldn't touch for x amount of years then that's investing. If you gave them an education then its investing, but handing out cash is not the definition of investing into anything.

halonachos wrote:

darkPrince010 wrote:
@halonachos: I'm curious what other countries use this system, since I've never heard of it as a complete substitute to taxes before now.

Not sure, I don't know the inner workings of the tax systems for every country in the world. The one thing I do know is that there are people pushing to replace income tax with a VAT or retail tax. A lot of people want the VAT tax, and cite the difference between AGI and spending over the years. The spending of individuals tend to remain somewhat constant in relation to the AGI which can fluctuate wildly at times.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@rented the whole MJ raping kids thing has no room in this at all.

The poor made poor decisions in most cases and the rich often made better decisions. We should reward hard work and tell those not working hard enough to work harder and if a guy worked hard enough that he earned enough that he doesn't have to work anymore then good for him, he won the game of life. If a person is disabled and unable to work then they will get benefits because of it, how many times do I have to fething say that for you to fething understand?

But no, you're not 'investing' in the poor when you hand them money. Now if you gave them a fething bank fund that they couldn't touch for x amount of years then that's investing. If you gave them an education then its investing, but handing out cash is not the definition of investing into anything.

MJ raping kids has EVERYTHING to do with this. If a poor made every mistake michael jackson made, he would be worse off than MJ was. A poor person and a rich person side by side make the EXACT SAME MISTAKE, the poor person's life is ruined and the rich person moves on.

Risk and reward simply do not scale at the extremes. At the very bottom everything is high risk and the rewards are bad and at the top everything is low risk and the rewards are huge.

This whole "poor people make worse decisions" thing is unsubstantiated bs. If what you're saying were true, then being born into a rich family wouldn't affect lifetime income in a large sample size. What we see in reality is the opposite. The poor have less chances and higher risk when engaging in the exact same behavior as the rich.

MJ raped kids and got away with it, poor people can rape kids and get away with it as well. Look Casey Anthony, I wouldn't consider her rich but she managed to get off free of charge for murdering her daughter.

Oh wait, maybe MJ didn't rape those kids, maybe Casey Anthony didn't murder her daughter. You have no proof and its ridiculous to make assumptions based off of unproven beliefs.

Warran Buffet is a fraud at the least of the insults. The rich pay a capital gains tax and an income tax, their income tax rate is 35% while the capital gains tax is 15% on any profit they get from the stock market, note the money going into the market has already been taxed so the government is double dipping on this one.

He also says that his secretary pays as much as he does, which sounds nice and evil but is completely false unless she makes as much as him. But she doesn't so in fact she pays less. If they both got taxed the same percentage (35%) and she makes $250,000 a year that's only 87,500, but Buffet makes over about 50 million a year and 35% of that is 17.5 million dollars he's paying in income tax not to mention any extra taxes he pays for capital gains taxes. The amount that the secretary pays is 0.5% yes, half of 1%, of what Buffet pays.

So we have that. Then we have the difference in taxes and pay scale:

Okay we have several different brackets and each get different income tax levels.
Married
10% tax=Up to $17,200
15% tax=$17,201 – $69,800
25% tax=$69,801 – $140,850
28% tax=$140,851 – $237,700
36% tax=$237,701 – $383,350
39.6% tax=Over $383,350

So yeah, the more you make, the higher your rate! good stuff there.

Rented Tritium wrote:I want someone to explain to me clearly how having a large national debt hurts us.

As in, I want someone to explain mechanically the bad things it does to us.

All the stuff about the US defaulting and being like Greece is absolute nonsense, the US is decades away from the point where people sensibly begin to predict that default will happen decades from then if there aren't changes in policy, but that doesn't mean there aren't negative consequences.

The first and most simple consequence is that you have to keep paying interest. Right now the US is paying about $200 billion a year in interest. That's a whole lot of money that could have been going towards something useful.

The other effect is called crowding out. Borrowings don't just emerge from the either, they're drawn from personal and corporate savings, both domestic and abroad. When the public sector is drawing those funds to provide for it's deficits, then that money isn't available for investment, and this hurts long term growth.

They are serious concerns,


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halonachos wrote:Your generalisation is also poor, not every single poor person is starving, works for a scrooge, and has a child missing a leg along with several other children. People can find ways to save money, and if a person becomes poor it is not my fault nor is it the fault of anyone else.

No, seriously, the poor save considerably less than the rich. This has been observed and tracked for just short of a hundred years by now. Go look up marginal consumption.

@AlmightyWalrus: Nobody cries when a rich person loses their income, nobody cried out when Michael Jackson went bankrupt. It seems that its only when the average joe goes bankrupt that anyone ever cares. So unless a rich person spends themselves into oblivion and you back them up then I don't want to hear from you.

There is a difference between spending all your money on a children's amusement park for private use and being unable to pay $400,000 in medical bills after you were ruled to have a 'pre-existing condition'.


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Frazzled wrote:Its interesting that sales taxes are a darling of certain conservative circles, whilst VAT taxes are a darling of more social governments.

It just goes to show the silliness inherent in these kinds of debates. The right loves to dream about replacing income tax with sales tax, to make all those horrible, horrible poor people their fair share. The left loves to dream about a VAT making sure that the rich will have to pay taxes because all their loopholes let them avoid income tax.

Both sides seem oblivious to the idea that setting tax policy based on spite and resentment is guaranteed to give stupid results.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:You're right. If we followed proper economic theory, that cash would be dividended to its stockholders. International Capital Gains treatment, legal limitations, and realization we're in GR II are limiting that.

Studies of stock prices cum and ex dividend have shown that the market doesn't value $1 paid from the company as highly as it does a dollar retained in the company.

That is, the share price on the day of dividend payment might be $35, the day after the $1 dividend it is likely to drop not to $34 as most people assume, but to $34.05 or thereabouts, depending on the company.

The conclusion is that the market doesn't actually value dividend payments as highly as it does cash retained in the company.


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Rented Tritium wrote:If you go to a loan shark for a pile of money to spend on strippers, they can only harass you so much and bankruptcy is still an option, yet if you borrow for school, they own you.

That's kind of insane.

It seems to me kind of an inevitable consequence of any system that is willing to loan out huge amounts of money to students with no capital tied to the loan. I mean, otherwise most everyone would just wrack up a hundred thousand in student loans, finish their degree, declare bankruptcy and hand over the poker table and half packet of saltines they own, giggle and start afresh with a tertiary education and no debt.


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biccat wrote:Do you know what it means to guarantee a loan?

If so, why would you be surprised that the government would not allow them to be discharged in bankruptcy?

Pretty much. Thing is, if you declare bankruptcy normally then the things you bought that led to you bankruptcy like a car, house or failing business are taken off of you. You're left to start over with nothing. It's good that a person is able to start over from new, but there's no doubting that bankruptcy sucks.

But they can't take your college education off of you. It's stuck in your head. So normal bankruptcy disincentives just don't work, and so it needs different laws.


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halonachos wrote:Warran Buffet is a fraud at the least of the insults. The rich pay a capital gains tax and an income tax, their income tax rate is 35% while the capital gains tax is 15% on any profit they get from the stock market, note the money going into the market has already been taxed so the government is double dipping on this one.

That's not what double dipping means.

The US actually has double dipping, there is a real complaint there relating directly to dividend payment and income tax, where a single cash inflow is taxed twice as it is defined under two seperate pieces of legislation. That's what double dipping means.

Being taxed on dividends drawn out of a company, and then taxed on the growth in the asset value when you sell the stock is seeing two different cash inflows taxed in different ways. It isn't double dippling.

This does not sound like much of a plan to me. Warren Buffet, while claiming the rich should be taxed more, takes every chance he gets to use the loopholes to pay less in taxes.

If he honestly thought he should pay more, he would write a bigger check to the IRS. They never turn down a bigger tax payment. People are free to pay more in tax anytime they want.

#1 close all loopholes, and get rid of ALL deductions.

#2 12% income tax or whatever it would be across the board, for everyone that makes income through work, investments, etc, including all compensation.

So simple, someone with a 4th grade education could figure it out, and the "form" would fit on a post card.

Why does everyone assume that the poor are poor due to some sort of medical bills? There are people who are poor because they don't have a good paying job, there are poor people out there who are poor because they fethed up. There are rich people out there who are rich due to hard work and some of those rich people become poor because they feth up.

Not everyone is in debt because they are dieing or have some long term illness.

sebster wrote:Thing is, if you declare bankruptcy normally then the things you bought that led to you bankruptcy like a car, house or failing business are taken off of you. You're left to start over with nothing. It's good that a person is able to start over from new, but there's no doubting that bankruptcy sucks.

Well, not always. You don't necessarily lose your house and car (under US law). A lot of bankruptcies aren't for stuff like a house and car (because those get repossessed/foreclosed on) but for unsecured debt.

sebster wrote:Being taxed on dividends drawn out of a company, and then taxed on the growth in the asset value when you sell the stock is seeing two different cash inflows taxed in different ways. It isn't double dippling.

I think he was talking about double taxation as it relates to corporate profits. They are taxed first as corporate profits (35%?) and then they're taxed again when distributed as dividends (15%).

The Green Git wrote:It's called a parasite.

At one point and time everyone was a parasite and a really good swimmer.

halonachos wrote:Why does everyone assume that the poor are poor due to some sort of medical bills? There are people who are poor because they don't have a good paying job, there are poor people out there who are poor because they fethed up. There are rich people out there who are rich due to hard work and some of those rich people become poor because they feth up.

Not everyone is in debt because they are dieing or have some long term illness.

You left out all the categories that hurt your case. Some poor people are poor because they weren't born into the correct circumstances, some people are rich because they were.

Not everyone in debt is in debt because they have illness, and not everyone rich is rich because they worked hard

You HAD to see this coming as an argument, dude. Rich and poor are not actually tied to how much hard work you do. Once you look at a sufficiently large sample size, the only real indicator if wealth is the wealth of your parents. Hard work my eye.