Originally Posted by Tabris

But none of that even matters in what I'm talking about. My parents worked up from a middle / lower-middle class lifestyle to where they got when I was born. I am lucky to have been born to them, yes. But so what? Whatever happens in college and beyond will be to my own credit or fault, not my family's. They don't have any vast network of contacts, like the Bush family does or anything. But they started out like many urbanites. That wasn't due to who they were born to. I am lucky, my advantage having gone to a prep school, although I had to work and it was paid for mostly by loans, rather than out of pocket or via scholarships. My decision now is whether to utilize that knowledge or let it go to waste. Again, that's my decision, not luck. My luck is that I may have an easier time getting ahead later in life, whereas my parents did not have that "luck" and so worked much harder than I may have to in order to get where they are.

But if you were simply following up on the last part of my post...a baby born to a crack-whore (I'm making a broad generalization) is at a severe disadvantage and I honestly don't know what to do with them. The government can't afford to support them, and unless they already want to learn, it'd become a fiscal blackhole. At the same time, if people decided to stop wasting their money on pimping out their cars, then that could easily put them in a better situation financially. Most people in general don't have their priorities straight. Hell, I'm paying for gas, personal bills, and food. I have been for 2 years and still can't make a budget worth shit and am almost addicted to buying stuff on eBay or just online in general.

But to look at it one way, Capitalism is meant to seperate fools from their money. I know I'm one of many, many people who suck at savings and balancing their budgets. I'll either learn, or eventually be very poor, my so-called "advantage" laid to waste by poor financial decisions.