Heads 10 Times in a Row

[Martin Hash]

If you were flipping a coin, and you had never done it before, and you got 10 heads in a row, wouldn't you think it was easy? That's what most financially successful people believe: they attribute their winnings to hard work & skill where in reality they were simply at the extreme margins of probability, magnified by the second-place-is-the-first-loser attitude of free markets where competitors bet their whole pot on each coin toss, as demonstrated by homilies like "you got to spend money to make money," "bet the farm," or "win big or sleep in the streets." Then we give the lucky winners magical names, like "titan," "marvel, "whiz kid," "job creator," "wonderkind," & "phenomenon." I can say one thing for certain, all the second place finishers certainly don't equate their loss to laziness or being awkward. Unfortunately, since nothing but chance separates the winners from the rest of us, and luck can't be quantified, we simply ignore that most essential of all components. But the problem is we've built a society around the mythology of merit when in reality the top quarter of the population could randomly replace anyone else. There is no reason for the astounding income inequality among that group but a series of chance events that won multiple lotteries in a row.