> Kinda typical though innit? She reads and surrounds herself by people
> who spew this stuff - though I suspect it has very little to do with
> Nietzsche and a whole lot more to do with religious writers and
> speakers who've been talking like this since, what?, 1870s? There was
> a good article in Harper's last year about the gospel of wealth and
> prosperity, peddled especially at blacks in the u.s. traced it back to
> the 19th century. Guy in cube next to me is an aspiring comedian,
> talks just like that about success - well, his future success anyway.
> It's all in your mind.
Two French economists recently tried to develop a formal model to explain why this set of attitudes is common in America and not in Europe:
http://idei.fr/doc/by/tirole/belief_world.pdf
The formal model aside, I think the underlying insight is perceptive.
SA