Growing up I was in a negative leverage situation, even though I was smart and hardworking I was bled financially and I had to spend effort to layer contingency after contingency before I could even drive.

This gave my life negative torque, the moment I got a little leverage, I stacked up roommates and basically lived like a digital ascetic for 12 years.

I ended up in the top 1% of earnings for my starting co-hort not because of my fairly average intelligent but because of my nearly 100% openness, insane resilience and way above average mental health game, and a decade of luck.

I spent all that time and energy getting out of poverty and by the time I bought a house and stabilized I was worn out.

The really shitty part is that all along the way I had chances and risks that I couldn't take, companies I couldn't start, etc. because while any one of those chances was a play money/time opportunity for others it would have been a bet the farm, burn the ships, might have to squat with a bunch of homeless dudes (again) risk for me.

Anything that gives a person the breathing room to stop the frantic hunter gatherer subsistence doom spiral and build skills is amazing.

Let's let other countries play the economically wasteful poverty game, let's let people in other countries die deaths of despair during their prime production years but if we want to be an advanced technology powerhouse we can't keep wasting the potential of all these poor but intelligent kids.