> Maybe with 3 or 4 full generations of nothing but hard work and luck you might make it up from working to middle class. Maybe.
This is a ridiculous over-exaggeration in the age of internet.
This is a ridiculous over-exaggeration in the age of internet.
Luck is important too. I read an article about a widow in India being giving a loan for a tractor. 2 months payments on the loan have to amount to about a year of her previous income (note that the other 10 months need to be repaid - this is a loan not a gift). A tractor is such a force multiplier that she is able to make the payments all year and save up enough to dream of sending her son to a good school. This whole thing depends on someone being willing to risk giving someone a loan who clearly doesn't make enough to pay it off.
I post this not really as a rebuttal to your post, or the grandparent, but more of a "here's what success a couple of generations later" actually looks like and what some of its characteristics may be.