Rich people do have trouble understanding what it's like to be poor
Wealth is a stock measure, income is flow.<p>You accumulate wealth out of what you can set aside out of the flow.<p>Some of us immigrants do not come to this country with an existing stock of wealth either back home or here. We are also not in the favored group of immigrants. We have human capital which we are trying to convert to financial capital for the next generation.<p>Then, when we sort of &quot;make it&quot; here, people who have family homes worth close to million and up (you can draw on that home equity, you know), people who know people (either family or others) who can &quot;help&quot; them with down-payments etc label us rich based on the flow we are receiving right now. These people tend to themselves make in the $150K range, in my experience and do not realize that the wealth they have was already accumulated in the less punitive environment of the 80s and the 90s.<p>I do not begrudge anyone for what they have. But I do find people who got a &quot;hand-me down&quot; apartment in Manhattan after growing up in a nice house in Westchester lecturing me about &quot;the rich&quot; and &quot;the poor&quot;.<p>Except that my ability to make it in today&#x27;s corporate environment depends on their political sensibilities.