I DO believe there is endless opportunity for those who have the advantages to pursue them - ambition, intelligence, education, connections, family support etc.
Noone actualy has all these advantages do they? Maybe Mitt Romney? Life is not like that for pretty much anyone, so I don't think that theoretical situation is what anyone actually deals with on the day to day. Hey one might be lucky to have one of them (ok I'm probably reasonably intelligent ).

As for whether or not one can suceed if they have boatloads of amibition etc.. ... it's kind of irrelevant to the question of whether life is getting harder for most people. And that's kind of an important question isn't it? In fact it's pretty much the whole question is it not? Or is this life itself just some afterlife where we spend eternity in tormented contemplation of whether or not we deserve our fates.

Mind you I probably wouldn't enjoy the show. So just profiling a bunch of people and how much their lives suck? You know I can grant that it might not be their fault that their lives suck, that life is bigger than them, that the economic system stinks etc. etc. but still .... A eulogy for manufacturing? Yea but unless anyone has any plans to bring it back (small scale manufacturing etc. might bring it back), it's gone baby gone. And eulogies for the dead are easy to write, what's harder is current politics and figuring out what the next manufacturing (ie the next field that will leave the country) is and what can be done about it.