I'm pretty sure the average American has close to no saving, the rate of home ownership is falling, and as the article states many well paying jobs are evaporating.

I think it's a fair measure of success to say that a successful person owns a house, has significant savings and a decent job. Perhaps a somewhat superficial success.

Agreed! Everyone should enjoy success, and success is being better than average.

I don't think people should build the expectation where they require "success" to be happy - that only precludes them from being happy when they're unable to become "successful", for a variety of reasons outside of their control, for example, a car accident. It matters not whether everyone can enjoy "success", it only matters that everyone feel they have had the opportunity to be "successful" and they had a solid go at it.

With this perspective, "success" can be better than average, which is what it is a lot of the times - most lotto players thinks winning the lotto is "success", and winning the lotto is by definition to achieve a financial outcome that is above the average of all financial outcomes that can occur from playing the lotto.

If success is being better than average, then not everyone could enjoy it, or else success would just be the average.

>99% everyone on earth has more than the statistical mean amount of legs.

Statistical mean would seem like a poor choice in determining average in that case then.

I think that @sliverstorm was conveying that idea via sarcasm.

What's the unit of measure of success? Networth-Orgasms/kgCO2?

The traditional definition is something along the lines of not being a limiter on the lower rungs of the Maslow hierarchy.

Can't feel safe, or the higher levels, if you don't have the money for food or medical care, etc.