Are the rich born in the right place at the right time? Are the poor victims of a system designed to keep them down?
This is the content of the program I just watched on Discovery Science-Through the wormhole with Morgan Freeman-S5 Ep8.
The answer to the first question would be likely yes, you need to be in the right environment to make it rich.
The answer for the second question would be no, no system is designed to keep people down. Its how parents bring up their children, the parents own level of education, the government policies and the environment they live in.
In our modern world, the government play a major role in our societies. Their plan for the country in area of social policy, education and the economy will affect how people live their life. Of course, the quality of the people in power, will definitely affect the outcome of the country.
If a corrupted government is in power, its people will suffer. Should the UN intervene with a military expedition and forcing a democratic election in such a extreme case ?
Ultimately, it boils down to the mind set of people in general. Therefore, education of people is very important, the more knowledge you have will help you make better decision. But, apparently our education system do not work very well in most cases. People with a degree level education can still generally be a normal man or woman in the street who do not think very much!
Other than education, human need to be able to think logically as well and need to live beyond just the normal self. We need to control the bad side of human nature, as human tend to be very much easily give in to their evil self and do things which satisfy their selfish need and craving for power and greediness.
These questions people asked are very contradictory to policies which they promote. Take the example of the financial crisis of 2008, why so many financial institutions failed ? The answer is because all of them want to make as much profit as the other. They ignored the general principle of financial world and executed trades which goes against their own policies. They are afraid that they will loose out on the profit if they do not participate.
So all the highly educated graduates from top universities everywhere joined in the huge party in the financial world. They traded all the fancy derivatives, sell all mortgages back securities underwritten on lousy quality mortgages given to people who might not be able to pay. It was a huge collusion to some extent, as the banks, rating agencies, brokers and many more worked together hoping that no one will ever notice. But, unfortunately, it was a zero sum game, you gain at the expense of another player.
Governments all over the world helped to bailout the banks, the US government alone came out with over 200 billon dollars, money which they did not have. But, In general, most got away without being prosecuted.
So do you think a top notch university graduate who is a top trader should actually be paid millions of dollars versus a construction worker who build your apartments block ? Think about it !
The answer to the first question would be likely yes, you need to be in the right environment to make it rich.
The answer for the second question would be no, no system is designed to keep people down. Its how parents bring up their children, the parents own level of education, the government policies and the environment they live in.
In our modern world, the government play a major role in our societies. Their plan for the country in area of social policy, education and the economy will affect how people live their life. Of course, the quality of the people in power, will definitely affect the outcome of the country.
If a corrupted government is in power, its people will suffer. Should the UN intervene with a military expedition and forcing a democratic election in such a extreme case ?
Ultimately, it boils down to the mind set of people in general. Therefore, education of people is very important, the more knowledge you have will help you make better decision. But, apparently our education system do not work very well in most cases. People with a degree level education can still generally be a normal man or woman in the street who do not think very much!
Other than education, human need to be able to think logically as well and need to live beyond just the normal self. We need to control the bad side of human nature, as human tend to be very much easily give in to their evil self and do things which satisfy their selfish need and craving for power and greediness.
These questions people asked are very contradictory to policies which they promote. Take the example of the financial crisis of 2008, why so many financial institutions failed ? The answer is because all of them want to make as much profit as the other. They ignored the general principle of financial world and executed trades which goes against their own policies. They are afraid that they will loose out on the profit if they do not participate.
So all the highly educated graduates from top universities everywhere joined in the huge party in the financial world. They traded all the fancy derivatives, sell all mortgages back securities underwritten on lousy quality mortgages given to people who might not be able to pay. It was a huge collusion to some extent, as the banks, rating agencies, brokers and many more worked together hoping that no one will ever notice. But, unfortunately, it was a zero sum game, you gain at the expense of another player.
Governments all over the world helped to bailout the banks, the US government alone came out with over 200 billon dollars, money which they did not have. But, In general, most got away without being prosecuted.
So do you think a top notch university graduate who is a top trader should actually be paid millions of dollars versus a construction worker who build your apartments block ? Think about it !
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