>that the people born into the top 1% almost always remain there, and people born in the bottom 99% almost always remain there.

The former isn’t true for income and doesn’t remain true for wealth for more than a couple generations. The latter is of course true because... math. 99% of the people are always going to be in the bottom 99%.

When you talk about the 1 percent for income, you are capturing doctors, lawyers, professors, and small business owners with your angst. Many of those people absolutely earned their position by busting their ass. You don’t become a successful spinal surgeon by having daddy grease the wheels. You do it by taking on $400k in debt and spending most of your 20s in school.