https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer...
Consider also that the US was populated by people who arrived with nothing. It wasn't wealthy people that came here from Europe.
Which means that a shocking number of millionaires live in poor neighborhoods and have modest lifestyles.
Those aren't the super-wealthy, of course. But most wealthy people can't be identified by where they live.
https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer...
85% of American millionaires are self-made (i.e. first generation).
"The Millionaire Next Door" https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer...
The second is On Writing Well. This book changed my view regarding how to write and how important it is to write well. As an engineer I regret how much I avoided writing in school. Now I play catchup after realizing lawyers and others with client facing jobs write much better emails. [http://amzn.to/2vTXu27]
And here are three other books that would be recommended by few on HN.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. I used to hate going home until I realized the clutter of stuff made me miserable. [http://amzn.to/2wwvS5h]
Why Men Love Bitches. 100% serious. This book is over the top but I stopped being a doormat in relationships and looked for partners with more self confidence. [http://amzn.to/2wwcYeZ]
The Low Down on Going Down. Yes the title is cheesy, but again I am 100% serious. I think a lot of us have unhealthy expectations due to Internet porn and this book sets the right attitude for the physical component in a relationship.[http://amzn.to/2vTSY41]
And companion book: [http://amzn.to/2wwSpyY]
Edit: Link for convenience: https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer...
Not true.Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/d...
The fact is that most rich people live without showing off. They enjoy having the freedom to do in their lives what they want but they do not want other people kidnapping their children or blackmailing them. Or just people behaving different with them because of the money.
You know Bill Gates used to park his car like everybody else in MS, until it became impossible for him to park without having 1 or 2 people ask him for money(on the tens of thousand of dollars each time).
Or ask me. I am not Bill Gates, but for people in my environment I have "made it".
Just putting my name in my HN account will significantly change how people react to my comments.
That might be "the #1 predictor," but out of how many predictors? What "percentage" is it, if that term is even meaningful here? How do we decide what counts as "wealthy?" Is it income or assets? If income, what happens to people making $300,000 a year but spending it all (I have met these people). What happens to the Millionaires Next Door (http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/d... ; it has done more to shape my thinking about wealth than any other book. One surprising fact: most millionaires don't have extraordinary incomes but do consistently live below their means and save their extra money)?
If having "wealthy" parents is the #1 predictor and accounts for, say, 20% of the likelihood of the next generation's wealth, and, say, education accounts for another 10%, what happens if 40% is noise / randomness? Then noise accounts for twice as much as wealth! Most of the actual peer-reviewed studies I've read about this topic come to the conclusions they do through some dubious data decisions.
I'm not trying to pick a pointless, semantic fight here, but I see a lot of statements that try to compress a complex set of issues and questions into a single metric. As usually happens with this sort of thing, there's also an element of anecdote here: I have seen kids from wealthy families piss it all away and kids from poor families do the opposite. My own grandparents had virtually nothing and didn't speak English.
You can get the book for $2.74:
https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer...
Unless there is some other reason you don't want to buy it?