it never happens

In Where I Was From, her book on California, Joan Didion debunks the Golden State's myth of rugged individualism and shows how greatly its economy has benefited from state subsidies from Washington.

In today's Independent Malcolm Gladwell goes further in unpicking the American Dream. He says America isn't the place to get rich. Not unless, that is, you're rich already.

'Once you are rich in America you stay rich... but if you are at the bottom it just never happens, statistically, it never happens that people make it. And that's very different from western European counties.'