Not true at all. This is particularly interesting given the forum you are posting to.

Let me describe it this way:

A high school kid can go out and buy any one of these computers:

https://goo.gl/OPdbCK

Go through this free course:

https://goo.gl/nInXeY

Gain even greater skills and understanding through this:

https://goo.gl/5DXZCI

And any number of these:

https://goo.gl/lZF13U

And then study this:

https://goo.gl/Vyrzd6

For a bright kid that's $200 and six months of a concerted effort to learn.

Now all he or she needs is some kind of an interesting idea.

Build a minimum viable product. Perhaps do all of this with a friend.

Apply to YC.

If all goes well, have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars and some of the best business coaching anywhere on earth. And millions of dollars past that if the idea generates interest. And hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in revenue in the future if the idea turns into a product that gains traction.

Please don't tell me there are no opportunities. All you need is a few hundred dollars, time and dedication and a reasonable support structure from which to explore (a friends couch or a bedroom at your parent's home). And, yes, a good idea and some luck.

This has never been possible in the history of humanity until modern times. A few hundred dollars, an idea and hard work.

Perhaps the reason the US ranks where it does is because people are not interested in making the effort required to improve their station in life. I know plenty of people like that. They talk, talk, talk and never take a risk of any magnitude or make the effort to turn talk into action. And they never go anywhere.

I'll give you a very concrete example: I have a good friend whom I've known for thirty years. He is a gun enthusiast and knows the subject very, very well. For as long as I've known him he has been talking about manufacturing accessories for other gun enthusiast. This is an extremely lucrative segment yet one I am not interested in. However, wanting to help him out I've offered him full access to my entire CNC shop along with workstations with the requisite CAD/CAM/FEA tools. Free of charge. All he has to do is buy raw materials, steel and aluminum, design something and machine it. I'd even have one of my machinists help him get started.

In other words, I am placing, at his feet, with no conditions whatsoever or desire to take a piece of the action, hundreds of thousands of dollars in high end manufacturing equipment, software, tools and support. No preconditions. A complete factory. We can even do electronics assembly for him. For free.

He can make as much money as he wants and I don't take a dime. I'll even do small production runs for him and not charge him a dime to run our machines and use our tooling just so he can have an initial inventory to sell.

That has been a standing offer that I have repeated with some frequency for the past fifteen years. What has he done so far? Talk. Just talk. He is a great guy and a good friend but he simply does not have what it takes to take that leap, even when everything is laid out for him.

BTW, I've had this discussion with him in person. I've asked him why it is that given the opportunity in front of him he just won't pull the trigger an try to turn his talk, his ideas, into a business. The response is always very circular and fuzzy, it boils down to the difference between talking about something and actually doing it. The latter is easy, the former is not.

Opportunities in the US have never been better. Blaming it on the rich is just one of the myriad excuses out there to justify not making an effort.

BTW, most people would feel rich if they made somewhere between $10K and $25K a year depending on where they live in the US. I am not necessarily talking about creating a Facebook here. There are plenty of business opportunities out there that can get someone to that $10K to $25K a month range without having to have a Masters degree from Stanford and wealthy parents. In fact, most of the very successful people I know ($1MM+ in income) never even went to college and clawed their way to success from nothing.

I'll give you an example of the latter. Friend of mine, emigrated to the US (legally) with very little to his name. Barely spoke the language. Barely graduated high school in Israel.

He bought a beat-up piece of shit car. Slept in it for about six months. Got himself a grunt job at an air conditioning installation company making shit money. Worked that for about a year. Saved up some money. He worked for me for a while doing electronics assembly work (which he learned with us, he knew nothing coming in). Did that for a while and saved some more money.

He eventually decided to go off on his own and start a courier business (letters and small parcel deliveries). This is before the internet, nothing was easy.

He beat the pavement for a month until he landed a small client. He had to be available 24/7. He would do his day shift making deliveries. At night he'd park his car in the parking log at his client's office with instructions to wake him up if they needed a delivery. He did that for a few months. Got a couple more clients. Continued to drive during the day and sleep in the car at night in a client's parking lot. Months went by like this.

Fast forward to today: He owns a good size courier/logistics company. He employs dozens of people. Has a small fleet of cars and trucks. They deliver locally, nationally and internationally, handling everything from small parcels to containers full of product. And yes, he makes millions.

Virtually no education. No money. Language challenges. And yet, today, he is wealthier than most US natives who have all the opportunities laid out in front of them.

If you want to blame the rich for everything, be my guest, it's a complete fabrication but hey, free country and all that.

Live long and prosper.