by Higgenbotham » Wed Jul 08, 2026 12:18 pm
In a sweeping cultural shift, the fabled American work ethic may be getting sidelined in the quest for easy money.
For generations, Americans built wealth through accumulated skill and earned experience, the kind of success that didn’t rely on shortcuts. Now, 72 percent of Americans either have a side hustle or are considering one, with many chasing returns from crypto, prediction markets, or AI content.
Why?
Consumer prices climbed more than 20 percent from 2020 to 2024, outpacing wage growth for most Americans and widening the distance between effort and reward. Pew Research found that just 39 percent of Americans under 30 believe the so-called American Dream is still achievable through their own ambition. The rise of zero-fee platforms like Robinhood and prediction markets like Polymarket has made the potential for big paydays possible—if the bets pay off.
There’s a mechanism driving this shift that rarely gets named directly: survivorship bias. That’s the psychological mechanism where we draw conclusions about something using only a few successful examples (the survivors) while ignoring the failures (which usually outnumber the survivors).
Today, the get-rich-quick stories that circulate on social media are the survivors. And they’re rewriting how millions of people think about effort, risk, and wealth.
That distortion matters to every leader and entrepreneur, because it shapes who’s entering the workforce, what they expect from careers, and how they evaluate building something versus betting on something.
The Dream That Changed
The American Dream has always carried a clear logic: effort connects to reward. Its roots run through the Declaration of Independence and the work ethic that defined early American culture. And for much of the last two centuries, the contract felt real enough to head west to the gold rush, take loans out to go to college, or drop out of school to launch a startup.
The number of Millennials who say the dream is out of reach has quadrupled, from 9 percent in 2017 to 35 percent in 2024, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/smallbu ... e8f96&ei=9
Let's break a few of the sentences in the above article down.
Pew Research found that just 39 percent of Americans under 30 believe the so-called American Dream is still achievable through their own ambition.
Most of the remaining 39 percent are deluding themselves. Their thinking is the equivalent of, "Smoking will just kill that guy over there, but I am invincible." Some of the remaining 39 percent will do well, maybe a quarter of them. Some people smoke all their lives and are almost completely unaffected.
There’s a mechanism driving this shift that rarely gets named directly: survivorship bias. That’s the psychological mechanism where we draw conclusions about something using only a few successful examples (the survivors) while ignoring the failures (which usually outnumber the survivors).
Today, the get-rich-quick stories that circulate on social media are the survivors. And they’re rewriting how millions of people think about effort, risk, and wealth.
It's a lottery economy. It doesn't matter what you are gambling on because it has all devolved to a lottery. Bernanke, when he printed trillions, guaranteed that it would turn into a lottery economy. Now it doesn't matter whether you get a degree from a top university or play the crypto market - it's all gambling.
The American Dream has always carried a clear logic: effort connects to reward.
Effort now connects more to punishment in various ways than to reward. One of ways to inflict punishment on hard working people is through Stacking, which was just discussed.
"So, for example, a supervisor may come to Smith and say, "Smith, this year your goal will be 7 projects instead of 4. Each project will be harder than the ones you did last year and on top of that you will do some training of your replacements, who will get lower pay than you. For the great job you have been doing, you will get a 2 percent raise, less than half of last year's inflation rate." Who hasn't been presented with something like this? What does it mean? Does it mean the economy is getting better and more efficient? Smith, if he understands Stacking properly, will say, "YES, SIR, I will try to do NINE projects, maybe even ELEVEN." Meanwhile, as far as Stacking and the Jenga pile goes, maybe Smith's health will suffer. Maybe he doesn't get cancer yet, but since cancer is a process that takes decades, the stage is set for him to get cancer 30 years down the line instead of 40 or never. Maybe his marriage suffers or his kid goes into the beginning stages of turning into a juvenile delinquent. In other words, fundamental blocks of responsibility are removed from lower in the Jenga pile in an unplanned fashion until on this particular individual basis, the entire pile collapses."
But Stacking is only one way those in authority inflict punishment on hard working people. So why bother?
The number of Millennials who say the dream is out of reach has quadrupled, from 9 percent in 2017 to 35 percent in 2024, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
In 2026, the numbers should be well over 50 percent...as the new dark age tightens its grip.
[quote]
In a sweeping cultural shift, the fabled American work ethic may be getting sidelined in the quest for easy money.
For generations, Americans built wealth through accumulated skill and earned experience, the kind of success that didn’t rely on shortcuts. Now, 72 percent of Americans either have a side hustle or are considering one, with many chasing returns from crypto, prediction markets, or AI content.
Why?
Consumer prices climbed more than 20 percent from 2020 to 2024, outpacing wage growth for most Americans and widening the distance between effort and reward. Pew Research found that just 39 percent of Americans under 30 believe the so-called American Dream is still achievable through their own ambition. The rise of zero-fee platforms like Robinhood and prediction markets like Polymarket has made the potential for big paydays possible—if the bets pay off.
There’s a mechanism driving this shift that rarely gets named directly: survivorship bias. That’s the psychological mechanism where we draw conclusions about something using only a few successful examples (the survivors) while ignoring the failures (which usually outnumber the survivors).
Today, the get-rich-quick stories that circulate on social media are the survivors. And they’re rewriting how millions of people think about effort, risk, and wealth.
That distortion matters to every leader and entrepreneur, because it shapes who’s entering the workforce, what they expect from careers, and how they evaluate building something versus betting on something.
The Dream That Changed
The American Dream has always carried a clear logic: effort connects to reward. Its roots run through the Declaration of Independence and the work ethic that defined early American culture. And for much of the last two centuries, the contract felt real enough to head west to the gold rush, take loans out to go to college, or drop out of school to launch a startup.
The number of Millennials who say the dream is out of reach has quadrupled, from 9 percent in 2017 to 35 percent in 2024, according to the American Enterprise Institute.[/quote]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/smallbusiness/passive-income-is-the-new-american-dream-the-psychology-behind-it-should-worry-leaders/ar-AA27l5Wx?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=12496922cd2d495c8bf4e31ce77e8f96&ei=9
Let's break a few of the sentences in the above article down.
[quote]Pew Research found that just 39 percent of Americans under 30 believe the so-called American Dream is still achievable through their own ambition.[/quote]
Most of the remaining 39 percent are deluding themselves. Their thinking is the equivalent of, "Smoking will just kill that guy over there, but I am invincible." Some of the remaining 39 percent will do well, maybe a quarter of them. Some people smoke all their lives and are almost completely unaffected.
[quote]There’s a mechanism driving this shift that rarely gets named directly: survivorship bias. That’s the psychological mechanism where we draw conclusions about something using only a few successful examples (the survivors) while ignoring the failures (which usually outnumber the survivors).
Today, the get-rich-quick stories that circulate on social media are the survivors. And they’re rewriting how millions of people think about effort, risk, and wealth. [/quote]
It's a lottery economy. It doesn't matter what you are gambling on because it has all devolved to a lottery. Bernanke, when he printed trillions, guaranteed that it would turn into a lottery economy. Now it doesn't matter whether you get a degree from a top university or play the crypto market - it's all gambling.
[quote]The American Dream has always carried a clear logic: effort connects to reward.[/quote]
Effort now connects more to punishment in various ways than to reward. One of ways to inflict punishment on hard working people is through Stacking, which was just discussed.
"So, for example, a supervisor may come to Smith and say, "Smith, this year your goal will be 7 projects instead of 4. Each project will be harder than the ones you did last year and on top of that you will do some training of your replacements, who will get lower pay than you. For the great job you have been doing, you will get a 2 percent raise, less than half of last year's inflation rate." Who hasn't been presented with something like this? What does it mean? Does it mean the economy is getting better and more efficient? Smith, if he understands Stacking properly, will say, "YES, SIR, I will try to do NINE projects, maybe even ELEVEN." Meanwhile, as far as Stacking and the Jenga pile goes, maybe Smith's health will suffer. Maybe he doesn't get cancer yet, but since cancer is a process that takes decades, the stage is set for him to get cancer 30 years down the line instead of 40 or never. Maybe his marriage suffers or his kid goes into the beginning stages of turning into a juvenile delinquent. In other words, fundamental blocks of responsibility are removed from lower in the Jenga pile in an unplanned fashion until on this particular individual basis, the entire pile collapses."
But Stacking is only one way those in authority inflict punishment on hard working people. So why bother?
[quote]The number of Millennials who say the dream is out of reach has quadrupled, from 9 percent in 2017 to 35 percent in 2024, according to the American Enterprise Institute.[/quote]
In 2026, the numbers should be well over 50 percent...as the new dark age tightens its grip.