Red Mosquito

Recently, and without the slightest bit of irony, newscaster Anderson Cooper said he doesn't believe in inheriting money. Where does RM come down on the issue of the preservation of generational wealth and inheritance?

i'd like to be the recipient of some generational and/or inherited wealth

I see nothing wrong with passing on your money to your kids. I hope I have something left some day to leave to my kids. My Dad has had a strong desire to pass his money on to me and my 2 siblings and he lives a pretty basic life in order to do so. He's 75, retired and pretty wealthy and he loves the fact that he can put his grandkids through college after he passes.

Eddie Vedder discovered this topic, oh, right around the time after Riot Act came out.

vegman wrote:I see nothing wrong with passing on your money to your kids.

I don't either, but I also don't think it's that simple. When we take into consideration the ever-widening wealth gap between the haves and the have-nots, inheritance can create a situation where assets are amassed by one class to the point where the even the successful elements of the other classes have no access to them because everything of value is already owned.

broken iris wrote:

vegman wrote:I see nothing wrong with passing on your money to your kids.

I don't either, but I also don't think it's that simple. When we take into consideration the ever-widening wealth gap between the haves and the have-nots, inheritance can create a situation where assets are amassed by one class to the point where the even the successful elements of the other classes have no access to them because everything of value is already owned.

That is true but giving it to the Gov't in the form of an estate tax isn't the answer.

vegman wrote:

broken iris wrote:

vegman wrote:I see nothing wrong with passing on your money to your kids.

I don't either, but I also don't think it's that simple. When we take into consideration the ever-widening wealth gap between the haves and the have-nots, inheritance can create a situation where assets are amassed by one class to the point where the even the successful elements of the other classes have no access to them because everything of value is already owned.

That is true but giving it to the Gov't in the form of an estate tax isn't the answer.

Probably not, but it's a fascinating topic. I thought a bit about it during the whole Intersectionality thing... that maybe post civil rights era inequity is more a function of generational wealth passed down by "white" parents vice a vast anti-people of color conspiracy, esp. given that they are barely two generations out of Jim Crow era oppression. I don't mean wealth in the Walton heirs sense, but in that they had the foundational stability needed to raise successful children who could improve their situation. My mother was by no means wealthy, we had a very modest home in a lower middle class area and my first full time job out of school paid more than she was making after 15 years at her company, but it was something and most of the kids I went to primary school with had nothing. It makes me wonder if there needs to be some kind of logical limit to advantage kids can start with.

And thus began Iris's swift decent into communism.

If my kids are good people, I have no issue with passing what I have down to them. If they end up being pricks, maybe not.

what comedian is it that has the bit about how there's a difference between being rich and being wealthy?
doesn't matter - the joke goes - Shaquille O'Neal is rich the white guy that signs his check is wealthy...

to me there's a wide gap between the haves and the have nots partially because of the racist foundations of the US. white America has had hundreds of years to amass fortunes and institute laws that would keep fortunes within families.
black America, and most other 'minorities' in the US have had maybe a quarter of that time (a generous estimate) to follow suit.
that's how families like the Kennedy's became american royalty. they started out as poor immigrant bootleggers or whatever, and through a lot of shrewd business dealing on the part of the father, as well as some good luck in when he was making his fortune, established a dynasty after what? a generation? two?

there's not as much opportunity available these days, although athletes and performers have more of an advantage than most - I'd like to see if and how today's rich 'former have nots' handle their riches and if they have the ability (and luck I suppose) to turn that into wealth for their children etc.