Interesting; I come from a different perspective. I grew up in a full family in a nice house with both parents. While not 1%ers, they were well to do; my father was an engineer, my mother a homemaker. I worked summer jobs, but during the school year, my job was to study. I worked hard as well, went to a good school, but decided that money wasn't a metric for success; impact was. I took a government job working at a national laboratory researching energy storage, both for transportation and grid stabilization. There's some nonzero chance that the development work I did in the 90's led, in some small way, to the ability for you to put panels on your house for less than the price of your house.
While I consider myself fiscally conservative (money is an abstraction for me as well; we meet all of our needs easily), and socially progressive, I absolutely come down on the side that "tax and spend" is a good idea. Governments are not like households; you do not, for instance, change how other people spend when you spend. Governmental debt is not household debt; when a government has debt, its because a household, somewhere, is saving; they're buying a government bond. As recently as 15 years ago, there was a concern (as in, the central bank was considering changing monetary policy because of it) that there would be too LITTLE governmental debt for us to have a robust economy (a government witout debt is a government that has sold no bonds, and therefore the banks have no place to stash money).
I think the title of this post says volumes, actually. "Unlikely" being the key word; Brad reached his measure of success despite a number of obstacles, both socioeconomic and resource. I would claim him to be an outlier, however, and there's enough data to back me up; the more likely outcome for an child from a single, non-homeowning parent who does not attend college is to be in either in the lowest (<$20,000 US per household) or second lowest ($20,000-$27,500 US per household) of the income brackets. While it is possible to overcome those odds (and in fact, it's extremely unlikely that at least a few people won't overcome those odds), the fact remains that, in the statistical regime, they are anomalies. Holding up anomalies as good examples isn't a wise choice; it shows a lack of understanding of statistics.
A better way to achieve lasting, stable growth for a statistical majority is to try to change conditions so that the "unlikely" becomes "more likely". And, while it is not impossible that wealth will lead to investment in society as a whole (and for some cases of wealth, they are game changing investments, like the Gates, Carnegie, or Rockafeller foundations), the truth is that, as taxes on wealth have been in retreat (they've been going down for 30 years), so has investment in the public good.
Brad, I'm sure, is a good man who takes care of his wife and children, laughs often, and takes good care of his employees. He's also an anomaly. While his story is inspirational, don't confuse inspiration with likelihood. Some people with humble beginnings will be able to invest their time, effort, and will to achieve something well outside of what the majority of their peers will achieve. The overwhelming majority, however, won't, without a more supportive infrastructure around them.
