Helping People Move Up

For John, BLUF:  Helping people still requires them to want it.  You can't want it for them.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Reynolds Law

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.

Makes sense to me.

I think there is an assumption out there, on the part of Middle And Upper Class People that everyone is like them or wants to be like them.  This is an untested assumption.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff