American Dream: Contemporary Example of Success

Contemporary example of the American Dream

Kirk Kerkorian, Tracinda CEO

Kirk is a really good example of success and The American Dream. Kirk was born to Armenian immigrants in 1917 gained his fortune from nothing. At the age of 6 his faimly lost everything, their home and their farm which forced them to move to the west coast. (ideas of westward expansion? chasing the American Dream). By the still very young age of 9, he helped his familt as best he could, selling newspapers and doing odd jobs. 
Instead of attending high school he chose a different path, first becoming an amateur boxer and then an Air force delivery pilot during the second world war. Using his money from that job he purchased his first plane to train pilots and do jobs around Vegas. 
He started to build out his air charter and sold it for $104,000,000 in stock. With this money he purchased 80 arces of land. He leased some of the land to Caesar's Palace; he also built the International Hotel and purchased the Flamingo Hotel, and sold both to Hilton at a premium. He purchased and restructured Hollywood's MGM Studios and built the MGM Grand, which became MGM Resorts, and remains a minority shareholder in the MGM Mirage. even though the company has recently had hard times, the 94 year old is still worth 3.3 billion today. 

This is a classic example of the American Dream. A man building up from nothing, being kick out of his home and forced to start a new. We see that Kirk had very little but used what he did have wisely, to start a business of transportation across America. It is a classic example of someone with nothing, building up to fame and fortune. (The American Dream). This image of the American dream portrays much of the success that we see in Ragged Dick. Kirk, like Dick, had next to nothing and is a story of how you can start off with nothing and work ur way up, Dick from his shoe shine, to a job as a clerk and our modern example of Kirk as a farmer to an incredibly wealthy business man. These stories almost match. Both show the same level of success. Coming from the very bottom and ending at the very top. However we don't know what becomes of Dick past his clerk job, but we can assume he goes on to achieve great things and continues his way up the 'ladder' of success.