Do rich people work harder?

I don't remember who, but there was an MIT professor some years ago who set up an economic model, kind of like the evolutionary models used by biological scientists.

He made his model with every individual of equal resources and capabilities i.e. he made his model non-individual specific and then varied economic conditions, geography, opportunity etc. and generated a distribution in which some individuals inevitably wound up wealthy and others poor, even though they were "equal" in the beginning conditions.

Given the vast variations in human energy, psychology, opportunity, personality etc. one could say that most wealth is luck and circumstance.

It is quite common to take the inductive approach and look at people who got rich and try to identify their "secrets" after the fact, and of course a lot of self anointed wags sell such scrutinies as if they are formulae for success extrapolation. That is not stochastically sound reasoning, however popular it might be to think that way.

Dumb luck just isn't what some people would like to believe. They want some kind of pre-ordination or a fantastic skill set that always works.

One might improve one's odds of gaining material wealth by working harder, but it is not a given or a slam dunk, it may just bump up the odds a bit. A lot of hard workers just like to work, or they like the work they do.

Rich [fill in the blank] are probably just [fill in the blank] who happened to get rich, it was not necessarily the reason or a requirement. There are a lot of poor [fill in the blank], too.

One might presume that Andre's wealthy individuals are the self made types rather than rich kids with advanced opportunities and inherited money. However, to complete the picture, one would have to also include the losers and the black swans. Nobody really cares about those, they are much less interesting or just deemed cosmic failures, even if they worked like dogs.

You can cite lottery winners. Lotteries encourage large numbers of people to engage in foolish, intemperate, self defeating gambling behaviors. However, these behaviors will make a random individual wealthy through no other work, skill or productive input except the tendency toward the intemperate behavior. However, the rich lottery winner is just as rich as the individual who "worked hard" for the money. The lottery winner, being most likely intemperate, stands a pretty good chance of losing the money again because the same behavior that caused him to win the lottery in the first place, can over time also cause him to lose his winnings, even large winnings.

A hard working individual may or may not become wealthy, but if he(she) does, they are less likely to lose the money and more likely to enhance their wealth. Then it is up to their children to lose the money for them.

Great post. Right now in many states besides Calif, I think we are seeing how many intemperate people there are;) OTOH,at $500M, I'm tempted to be intemperate myself, LOL:D
 
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The correct way of framing the question would be:

What percentage of variance in net worth is accounted for by # of hours worked?

Other variables in the multi variant regression model are:

Intelligence
Social intelligence
Money focus / obsession
Looks (it has been shown that height correlates with income!)
Risk tolerance
Social background and opportunity factors

The variance not unexplained by the model would be the ramdomness (luck) factor.
 
I think there are lots of focused, energetic people who are engaged in productive activity (as opposed to sitting in front of the TV or writing posts on an audiophile board :)) 60 - 80 hours per week who are only "working" 40 - 50 of those hours. They may be learning, gardening, cooking, tweaking their stereos, playing music (as opposed to listening), very proactively raising their kids and being partners to their spouses, caring for elderly parents, volunteering for church or charity...the list is long, and the above, taken mostly from my own life, is no better than anyone else's list.

The "self-made" wealthy, who get there by pouring all of their time and energies into a business or a career are not necessarily smarter, more energetic, more driven or even more focused (more singular, perhaps) than people who spend 40 hours making a decent living and the rest of the time living their lives. They have simply made different choices. And if they have spouses, children...responsibilities that cannot be met by more money, an argument can be made that they made the wrong choices.

I don't begrudge them their hard-earned money, but I sometimes feel bad for the people around them, particularly the kids. YMMV.

Tim
 
I think there are lots of focused, energetic people who are engaged in productive activity (as opposed to sitting in front of the TV or writing posts on an audiophile board :)) 60 - 80 hours per week who are only "working" 40 - 50 of those hours. They may be learning, gardening, cooking, tweaking their stereos, playing music (as opposed to listening), very proactively raising their kids and being partners to their spouses, caring for elderly parents, volunteering for church or charity...the list is long, and the above, taken mostly from my own life, is no better than anyone else's list.

The "self-made" wealthy, who get there by pouring all of their time and energies into a business or a career are not necessarily smarter, more energetic, more driven or even more focused (more singular, perhaps) than people who spend 40 hours making a decent living and the rest of the time living their lives. They have simply made different choices. And if they have spouses, children...responsibilities that cannot be met by more money, an argument can be made that they made the wrong choices.

I don't begrudge them their hard-earned money, but I sometimes feel bad for the people around them, particularly the kids. YMMV.

Tim

No one suggested a single minded focus on maximizing net worth is a smart or optimal choice in life. We simple try to ascertain if there is a relationship between hours worked and money in the bank.
 
I am just in the middle of my reading: The Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, for all of you who have been thru the book it re-defines success and successful people from a very unique perspective, and one of the "outliers" rely on the fact of the famous 10,000 hours for mastering anything. a good and provocative read!

http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930
 
Lots of wisdom in this thread, I've agreed with most of what I've read.

I don't feel that I can add to it, other than many of the rich feel they are superior and entitled. That may be called the ugly side of it, but considering it all, many of them do work harder, smarter and take more chances.

That said, I've had a much harder time collecting from my rich clients than I do my middle class clients.

One guy went so far as to say; if you want your money, you are going to have to sue me.

Apparently he took great pride and joy knowing that he could afford the lawsuit and I couldn't hope to break even given the legal system. Bullies come in all shapes and sizes, but they are typically either bigger or richer than me.
 
Lots of wisdom in this thread, I've agreed with most of what I've read.

I don't feel that I can add to it, other than many of the rich feel they are superior and entitled. That may be called the ugly side of it, but considering it all, many of them do work harder, smarter and take more chances.

That said, I've had a much harder time collecting from my rich clients than I do my middle class clients.

One guy went so far as to say; if you want your money, you are going to have to sue me.

Apparently he took great pride and joy knowing that he could afford the lawsuit and I couldn't hope to break even given the legal system. Bullies come in all shapes and sizes, but they are typically either bigger or richer than me.

Some rich have an obsessive compulsiv personality disorder (the obsession being money), and will screw over anyone to get their hands on it. Others are hard working folks making lots of money in the process of doing what they like with much passion and energy. Yet others are simply carrying the baton of family wealth and privilige. How the percentages break down I have no idea.
 
I think I can safely say (that unless you're a homeless man living out of soup kitchens) that I am the poorest individual on this forum, having turned a gross of about $1500 this year, down from $3000 last year and $7000 the year before.

---- Mark, please don't assume that you are the poorest member here on WBF (active or passive).
...If you only knew ....

...And even from all the people who are simple 'lurkers'.

My take on it is wealthy people have a lot of 'nervous energy'. They can't keep still. They cram ever waking moment with some task. On top of that, they have refined social skills. They have connections. They also have the ability to focus on what matters--not necessarily what they, personally, are inspired by. I think there is also a love of money, a sense that money is an end in itself. The rich won't waste time associating with non-productive individuals. They hang out with their own kind, and their leisure is also business (how many business deals were made on the golf course?) Some, not all, of the wealthy, are unscrupulous and blunt. If you don't quite suite their needs, you're discarded like yesterday's trash.

That's my take on the rich, from the few times having dealt with them.

---- I like your take; it reflects some truth. :b
 
I thought rich people hired someone else to do their work.
 
I think there are lots of focused, energetic people who are engaged in productive activity (as opposed to sitting in front of the TV or writing posts on an audiophile board :)) 60 - 80 hours per week who are only "working" 40 - 50 of those hours. They may be learning, gardening, cooking, tweaking their stereos, playing music (as opposed to listening), very proactively raising their kids and being partners to their spouses, caring for elderly parents, volunteering for church or charity...the list is long, and the above, taken mostly from my own life, is no better than anyone else's list.

The "self-made" wealthy, who get there by pouring all of their time and energies into a business or a career are not necessarily smarter, more energetic, more driven or even more focused (more singular, perhaps) than people who spend 40 hours making a decent living and the rest of the time living their lives. They have simply made different choices. And if they have spouses, children...responsibilities that cannot be met by more money, an argument can be made that they made the wrong choices.

I don't begrudge them their hard-earned money, but I sometimes feel bad for the people around them, particularly the kids. YMMV.

Tim

---- Right there; you got it!
They indeed made their own life's choices and they did stick with it or quit. :b
 
He gives comb-overs a bad name?
 
A toxic ginger cloud of braying narcissism. If they didn't flush Manual Noriega out with ultra loud recordings of rock and roll, they could have done it quicker with "The Great Thoughts of Donald Trump."
 
High-End Audio & the Invisible Hand

-- As We See It

This is a subject that I very much like, and it seems that I'm not alone. :b
... - "Do Rich People Work Harder?" -

Now, I am simply going to quote John Atkinson's last part of his prologue (As We See It),
from the Stereophile's September 2011 issue. ...The best part IMO.

_________________

-- "My late father always told me that wealth comes from people making things and selling them; bankers, stockbrokers, and realtors move money around, he said, but they don't create wealth. It was only years later that I realized that he was channeling what 18th-century philosopher and economist Adam Smith had written in his The Wealth of Nations (1776): "Labour was the first price, the original purchase--money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased."

-- But it was also Adam Smith, called "the Father of Modern Economics," who first defined the concept of the free market. Smith proposed the theory of how the invisible hand of self-interest allows a free market to operate. (It is often overlooked that for the invisible hand to operate efficiently, customers need access to all relevant information, and that a free market mandates freedom of information.) In a global marketplace, the efficient operation of the free market demands that manufacturing be done where it costs least--which you see in today's migration to China of the manufacturing of audio products.

-- It remains to be seen if, in China, the rise of a prosperous middle class and the growth of stricter environmental laws in that pollution-ridden country will increase the cost of manufacturing there. Some US audio manufacturers are already talking about moving production back to North America. But if manufacturing continues to leave North America, while some of us may still have money, we might not necessarily have wealth. As Adam Smith also wrote in The Wealth of Nations, "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." And no matter where it is made, poor and miserable people don't buy high-end audio equipment."
 
-- Do you guys know Donald Trump?

He gives comb-overs a bad name?

The living proof that a sufficiently narcissistic financially obsessed moron with sound commercial instinct but otherwise an IQ of 80 can become a billionaire.

A toxic ginger cloud of braying narcissism. If they didn't flush Manual Noriega out with ultra loud recordings of rock and roll, they could have done it quicker with "The Great Thoughts of Donald Trump."

Yes, unfortunately. A disgusting excuse for a human being. A treasonous, narcissistic, fat pig.

---- Yep, you guys seem to know some about him. :b
 
Having some clues as to to the demographics of this board, I suspect this thread is evidence in favor of that old belief that the rich never think of themselves as rich. :)

I wonder how rich you have to be before you think of yourself as rich?

Tim
 
Nassim Taleb describes the phenomenon of "making yourself poor again."

He cites an ivy league educated lawyer in New York whose social climbing wife insists they apply and live in an exclusive co-op. Their life experience then becomes being snobbed by trust fund dowagers and various and sundry ultra wealthy types who think they are wannabes and poseurs, even though they make in excess of half a million dollars a year in income.

Most people, whatever their wealth, think that if they just made or had about 40 percent more, their problems would be solved and they would be happy. This is apparently the case no matter what their income or net worth.

I was acquainted in the day with an heiress in Pacific Heights. She had boo hoo money, but she would walk around her neighborhood and point out the residences of the people who had "real" money with awe.

There are some individuals in my parents age group who were raised in warm, tight knit communities during the Great Depression. They were happy and had fulfilling childhoods. They had no idea they were dirt poor until they had a basis for comparison when they left for jobs in cities.

A lot of it is relative, the old "status groupie" neurosis of the 60's and 70's.

Now, if I just had 40 percent more......!!
 

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