Similar to jacquesm, my answer to the question of how I became rich was "I was born in America." Our poor people have access to more than anyone in the history of the world. Our poor people have magic boxes with which they can talk to people anywhere. Our poor people can go to a building where they have free books for anyone, and more magic boxes with which they can look up any piece of information they want, for free. Our poor people can walk into a supermarket and buy fresh fruit year round. (If they have kids, the government will even give them coupons) Our poor people have another magic box that receives 24-hour moving pictures of news, movies, entertainment, and educational programming. Many of our poor people have a metal box that you pour gasoline in and it moves by itself much faster than a horse can gallop. When our poor get sick, they can go to the emergency room and get doctors for free (the rich people's insurance and the rich tax-payers foot the bill).

In a third-world country poor people wonder if they are going to have food today. If they get sick, they die. When they want to travel, they walk. If the crops fail, they starve. They can count on the fingers of one hand the number of suits of clothes they have.

If you have a college degree, statistically, you are richer than 98% of the world.