<p>
</p>
<p>Because personal connections don’t matter at all, and so the son of a hedge fund manager and the equally qualified son of a fast food worker have exactly the same chance of getting high-paying jobs?</p>
<p>Hmm. And yet, when parents ask about how their child should try to find employment, everyone here emphasizes networking their personal connections. Why would that be?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be too surprising if the phrase was uttered by either a lower SES student receiving full FA or another fellow student disgusted by a rash of chronic obnoxious and demeaning comments about FA/lower SES students from the author. It could be inferred from his comment about how his opinions on government debt/spending are described in his own words. </p>
<p>Moreover, this plays into a popular old Princeton stereotype as this was a serious issue there according to those I’ve known who attended during the '80s and early '90s. </p>
<p>This included a few from the latter group who themselves fitted in because they were from higher SES families and attended private boarding/day schools…including British “Public Schools” and yet, were disgusted by snobby and classist comments made by their fellow SES and private school educated peers towards lower SES and/or public school educated classmates. </p>
<p>Not every P grad is the child of a hedge fund manager CF. In fact, the vast majority of them are not. So yeah, you can find some that have an advantage, but they have an advantage over middle class and upper middle class kids whose parents aren’t in that position either. No specific advantage over the grad from a lower socio-economic background.</p>
<p>I think “that’s easy for you to say” can be appropriate, as long as context is provided. For example, you can easily imagine situations in which somebody might sensibly say, “That’s easy for you to say, as a Princeton student.” If we’re talking about being followed around in a store, “that’s easy for you to say as a white person” might be appropriate.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Milken’s original 1989 sentencing for a $600 million fine and 10 years in prison was reduced in 1990 to $200 million and 2 years. Any other money he paid was not for his criminal case, but settlements for civil litigation brought by people he had defrauded (“compensation to investors”). His current net worth is estimated at $2.5 billion so, obviously, his punishment did not ruin him financially. </p>
<p>His prison time was served in minimum security on the base in Pleasanton, CA, a women’s prison with a few dormitory-style rooms for men in transit in the federal system. They have a gym, a track, a library, tennis courts and a lounge. During his second year, he was allowed to go home on the weekends.</p>
<p>Contrast that with the other extreme, a 17 year-old kid from my old neighborhood, convicted of stealing a boom box, was sentenced to 2 years in a NYS adult prison and was raped 34 times his first day. Once he got out of the hospital, he was raped 4 to 10 times a day for the rest of his stay. He died a few months after release, another horror story I won’t bring up here.</p>
<p>So you see, when we say someone like Michael Milken went to “prison,” it has little resemblance to the more typical American experience. He came out with his wealth, dignity, and now his reputation intact. If he were to start speaking authoritatively about prison life based on his experience, or if he were to claim he was treated just like everyone else ( I would assume he would never do this), I hope someone would be bold enough to tell him to ■■■■, not just the borderline “check your privilege” or the submissive “excuse me, Mr. Milken, but I may have a different viewpoint.” </p>
<p>Thats horrible. Oh my. </p>
<p>
[Quote}I think “that’s easy for you to say” can be appropriate, as long as context is provided. For example, you can easily imagine situations in which somebody might sensibly say, “That’s easy for you to say, as a Princeton student.” If we’re talking about being followed around in a store, “that’s easy for you to say as a white person” might be appropriate.
[/Quote]
</p>
<p>I agree. </p>
<p>However, I do think you are stopping one step short of why people have issue with such statements, several examples which I gave. And that is, the person saying such a statement, more often than not, stops right there.</p>
<p>Such statements, while they can be very appropriate with the proper context, are not constructive arguments or solutions to anything. They are merely descriptive statements that pretty much start and end where they are. </p>
<p>The issue my DS says he has (and I have witnessed a couple exchanges) is those statements are most used after a constructive argument about something has been made. The “that’s easy for you to say with context” can be a legitimate starting point, but it needs to be followed by a second constructive part for any real dialogue to continue. </p>
<p>And therein lies the problem. Such statements are used (in the middle of conversation) to often counter a constructive argument with a descriptive statement. Descriptive is not a constructive counter argument or solution to anything. Therefore, by virtue of the statements differing linguistic and philosophical foundations, that pretty much ends the conversation. This is why linguistically, by definition, such statements are usually conversation enders. </p>
<p>For example, the one comment told to my son about my car was said in the middle of a conversation of the effect of the minimum wage on job creation. The statement had nothing to do with anything in the conversation, except to try and say that my DS because his dad as X car somehow cannot really understand how economic policies affect the poor. A definite conversation ender. </p>
<p>Another pertinent example with the opposite outcome is my wife tells me all the time “How you you know? You are not female.” That would be pretty effective in stoping the conversation, if she did stop there. But she does not stop there; she continues with a constructive counter argument / solution that, if I disagree, I can counter. </p>