First, I would like to say it does not matter how much money a person makes from a job or business ownership. The important thing is what someone does with the money he/she makes.

I know people who make $500,000 a year, who most people would consider rich, and they have a huge amount of debt. I also know people that make $20,000 a year, who people would consider poor, and are now retired millionaires with no debt.

So what makes rich people rich? Rich people save more money than they spend, and poor people spend more money than they make. The fact that someone makes $500,000 a year means nothing if he/she sends everything. At the end of the year that person's net worth is $0. While on the other hand a person that only makes $20,000 a year and saves $1,000 at the end of the year that person is $1,000 richer. The person who makes $20,000 in this case is richer than the person making $500,000 a year.

It's just that simple.

Well I guess there are a lot of factors, I would have to say wealthy people became wealthy by either hard work or were born with it. Sometimes poor people stay poor because they don't want to change and would like to just live off of welfare or something else, or sometimes they just have really hard lives and can't pay for everything that comes their way, and have no way of becoming more educated and getting a higher paid job. Some also has to deal with luck I suppose. Some poor people though don't mind being poor and therefore don't want anything to change. Sometimes I don't think we give wealthy people very much credit for their success when many of them have worked extremely hard to get to where they are.

Poor people don't have to remain poor. With a little hard work anybody could go from poor to not poor. Maybe not a billionaire, but still the poor do not have to remain poor. Set your sights on some realistic financial goals, and you'll be surprised how, with a little hard work and planning, easy you could accomplish said goals.

Wealthy people must invest their money or use it wisely in some other manner to get more money. Sometimes, it is hard to break the cycle of being poor.

greed

Land + Resources + Knowledge.

Most of them work very hard.

The second half of your question is not correct. Many billionaires over time have started out poor and were able to work at something that earned themselves a lot of money.

The inventors of Google, Yahoo, and many other companies started out poor and worked hard to get where they are now.

Edit: And don't for get Oprah Winfrey who literally went from rags to riches, as did Kirk Kerkorian, Las Vegas billionaire who used to gamble his meager boxing winnings in Las Vegas, until he realized the real money was in bringing gamblers to Las Vegas, so he and some partners bought an airline with money they raised.

Many people who have gotten rich did it by developing a way to fill a need they had or saw in other people.

Im going to go out on a limb here and say its the use of credit; over the years ive noticed those that are wealthy, save up money and purchase with cash if they spend at all; poor people use the hell out of credit and put themselves into debt; so its a question of discipline vs excuses.

Capitalism plain and simple. Capitalism allows for the most greedy, selfish, self centered, corrupt, and evil people to make money through the exploitation of workers, while the rich take all the money from their labor and pay them subsistance wages. Most billionaires, have lied, cheated and stolen to get to where they are. The poor remain poor because the rich keep them that way, and because they are hard working, honest, though perhaps a bit uneducated, people. The poor are often poor through no fault of their own; it often their employer who exploits them that is responsible for keeping them poor. And ONCE YOUR POOR in americ, NO ONE is gonna give you a second chance, so your garanteed never to get out of poverty. The american dream is BULLSHIT.