That's the very definition of anecdotal evidence and survivorship bias. Both things that a strong STEM education should help squash.

It's also based on a historical peculiarity. In the west, and in particular in the US, to get a good STEM education you statistically have to be middle class or wealthy in the first place. (It's not impossible to have one if you're not -- just more difficult and rare). That wasn't the case in Eastern Europe, where the state provided easier access to higher education.

I had cable internet very early in it's history, and I used to for things other than playing Half Life.

I did not end up going to Stanford, but I went to a decent state school and while I'm not rich, I'm certainly much better of than friends who had other majors.

> which translated in material affluence 25 years later on a different continent Yes. And that's why emigration has a big impact in improving world-wide socio-economic mobility.

But suppose that you have started your live in an already rich country. In that case that country socio-economic mobility, by definition, is what gives you how dependent is your wealth on your parents wealth.

World wide socio-economic mobility probably is quite good. As it is easier and cheaper to emigrate than ever and also because there has been a lot of growth in non-western countries. But the article was talking about North America. And in that case, as it is also true on all western countries, mobility is shrinking. In that scenario education, love, good habits are still important for your well being. But they are not strong indicators of your absolute wealth.

Direct ways of transferring wealth between generations never fail. And there's a lot of those going on too.

Transferring values is hard. Transferring cash is easy.

Sure it does.

Plenty of heirs "lose the farm."

It's been said that the first generation builds the business, the second generation manages it, and the third generation loses it.

Maintaining and growing wealth are different than receiving and spending.

The transfer still worked. And people who get success more on their own sometimes lose the farm too (more often, I'd bet - I don't think there are any low risk strategies of getting richer than your parents).

Maintaining and growing wealth are different than receiving and spending.

It's much easier than getting it in the first place, though.

Ah, but how diluted does it get with each increasing cohort of heirs?

Not always easy. There are disasters too - hyperinflation, nationalization, monetary/land reform, privatization.. any of them can cause you to lose large amount of wealth.

So many of my mid-to-highschool classmates mates had desite for, air quote, me "working all the time", end of air quote. Can't ignore that.