Where you start in life matters. It squares with the things I've observed in my own life; hardworking people who spend every waking hour working for the betterment of their friends and family are nevertheless constantly battered by mischance and bad fortune. I've learned to differentiate the good luck that I possess in my own life from the bad luck that others have. Despite my continued work in supporting them with financial aid, useful contacts, and marketable skills, they are still forced by circumstance to end up destitute.
At this point, some might say, "you didn't earn your brain/parent's money/etc." I say that's nonsense, because the entire idea of "earn" arises in order to distinguish real people who choose to act toward a goal from those that choose not to. And of course, that is the point. None of these things were earned. This is a basic framing problem[1], and the entire basis of chaos theory[2]. Initial conditions matter. A proper scientific experiment includes a control group measured against an experimental group, and both of these groups are impossible to meaningfully distinguish at the beginning of the observation. If this is not the case, say because one group is more intelligent by some accepted measure of intelligent, then the measurement of a variable, say the application of choice to arrive at earnings, becomes utterly nonsensical. The causative agent could be either the initial difference or the experimental variable.
Using simplistic philosophical bases for one's beliefs is tantamount to unexamined religious dogma and in no way demonstrates any kind of empirical basis. Furthermore, claiming to have surveyed "bums to billionaires" without proof is merely, in the sophistic style of javert, a logical fallacy.
But it's cute you two believe you have any grasp of epistemology, rhetoric, or logic.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)#Exper...
