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The Death of Horatio Alger

f.y.i. for those of you who, like me, wonder who the hell Horatio Alger is: according to Wikipedia, back in the day he was the author of more than 100 "rags to riches" stories glorifying the ability of the Average Joe to achieve the American Dream.

So despite the somewhat ominous message of the article, I was amused by this passage:

Thomas Piketty, whose work with Saez has transformed our understanding of income distribution, warns that current policies will eventually create "a class of rentiers in the U.S., whereby a small group of wealthy but untalented children controls vast segments of the US economy and penniless, talented children simply can't compete." If he's right--and I fear that he is--we will end up suffering not only from injustice, but from a vast waste of human potential.

Goodbye, Horatio Alger. And goodbye, American Dream.

See, so a decade from now, when my grad school buddies and I are languishing away in the bottom 25% with debt up to our eyeballs, working at Wal-Mart and surviving on ramen, we can at least take comfort in the fact that we are FAR more talented than those keeping us on the bottom, e.g. certain blonde, chihuahua-wielding, Ugg-wearing heiresses.