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What if a person did not earn, but inherited wealth? Nearly 50% of the Forbes 500 have inherited their wealth. The Walton children will soon be inheriting a su

What if a person did not earn, but inherited wealth? Nearly 50% of the Forbes 500 have inherited their wealth. The Walton children will soon be inheriting a sum equal to the combined wealth of the bottom 3/4 of all black American families.

snitko 12y ago
A society where inheritance is not possible or heavily taxed are doomed to spiral into short-term entertainment consumer economies. That is, people, knowing they can't leave anything to their children, will spend as much as they can on things they don't really need, thus provoking the wrong kind of spending. The question is, if I made my money honestly, do I have the right to spend my money as I please? If yes, then I should be able to leave it to my children, and not to someone else's children. If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  >If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair If our current system of government weren't rotten to the core, I'd actually agree with you. But so much of the top 1% of net worth has been accumulated through government spending (particularly DoD spending) or corporate welfare (particularly in the finance sector), and that's equally immoral, evil, and unfair.
  - snitko 12y ago
    oh, but I agree. I'm not advocating government spending. I'm only saying that in principle, ANY government is corrupt and the most wealth is accumulated by being close to the power (either by lobbying, favoritism, coercion or plain corruption). Government (both as a concept and as a specific entity in each country) is the source of most of the inequalities, not the cure.
    - jnbiche 12y ago
      >most wealth is accumulated by being close to the power (either by lobbying, favoritism, coercion or plain corruption) Then you understand why people are so pissed about the 1%? The middle class, particularly under 40, is fucking suffering, man. That's not a good thing. If you're an honest man in the top 1%, you should be working like a demon to change the current system, because having so much resentment against the most wealthy doesn't bode well for your future (either due to extraordinarily high taxes or civil unrest, neither or which I am advocating for).
      - snitko 12y ago
        This is why I believe in Bitcoin and work on its infrastructure. It doesn't need government. You don't need to ask for permission. There is no way you can massively steal it from individual wallets or in many cases even know that someone has a certain amount of money. Governments can't fund wars and can't just bail banks out by more taxation and printing more money. Bitcoin is the answer.
        jnbiche 12y ago
        Yeah, that's one of the big reasons I got interested in Bitcoin, including contributions to its development. Unfortunately, it has attracted a huge swarm of scammers, pumpers, and other dishonest people as it's grown, so I've lost interest. While all the hacks are unfortunately part of a growing process, security will continue to improve[1]. I'm much more concerned about this type of people Bitcoin has attracted, and that much of its community has promoted. I'm particularly concerned that the constant influx of scammers may be inevitable in an anonymous or pseudonymous, irreversible currency, which a decentralized currency almost necessarily must be. 1. By necessity cryptocurrency may well bring about a rebirth in information security
        jnbiche 12y ago
        By the way, in case you see this later, I didn't downvote any of your posts. Looks like someone wasn't happy with either of us.
- userulluipeste 12y ago
  "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you" But that's valid for a lot of things. Say, although you own a land, you still have to pay taxes on it, and if you won't, in the long run it will be forcefully seized from you. It's just how the society was designed (or "evolved into", if you please), with its laws that we, for the most part, just come to accept. Similar acceptance exists and/or can be (not that it should be) further extended for many other instances. The only necessary thing for imposing such an order is power. An authority has the power over land owners, thanks to the nature of that owned good - being immobile and having an intrinsic value. Now, given the right kind of power, a similar order of things can be forced on pretty much everything!
- xnull2guest 12y ago
  > A society where inheritance is not possible or heavily taxed are doomed to spiral into short-term entertainment consumer economies 1.) Are there numbers that back up this claim? 2.) I've already heard our society is in a death spiral of short-term entertainment and consumerism (and for reasons deeper than an estate tax). How do you suppose that an estate tax is somehow more fundamental? > That is, people, knowing they can't leave anything to their children, will spend as much as they can on things they don't really need, thus provoking the wrong kind of spending. Again numbers. Or any kind of precedent? Might one suggest that the children who inherit the wealth but don't have the work ethic are provoked into the wrong kind of spending? This claim seems all the work of narrative and no work of empirical grounding. > The question is, if I made my money honestly, do I have the right to spend my money as I please? That is not the question. It is one question in a long list of questions. Another question is how much of a right does someone have to do "A" before it interferes with the rights of others (the foundation of our values) - in cases where "A" is wealth accumulation there does exist points at which the rest of society is hurt. And in fact, nobody is suggesting that you may not pass inheritance, just that it be taxed like everything else. In fact taxed heavily. > If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair. It is a far, far cry from communism. Remember Locke's own concept of property - no land or wealth is owned by anyone, a person merely the products of their own labor (an apple for picking it, a crop for sewing it). The wealthy in this country and in modern capitalism have not earned the wealth by working the fields. They own the machines that work the field and pay the labor force that works the field. That is to say, they own the vaunted 'means of production'. Essentially, wealth creates and captures wealth. Piketty's analysis of this is damning. Piketty's framework is simple: An individual with accumulated capital's purpose is to live from their accumulated capital and grow the rest faster than inflation, so that their accumulation grows. When the savings rate (today for the top elite ~10%) outstrips the inflation rate (~1.2%), accumulated wealth grows. But workers wealth, which doesn't grow at 110% per year, actually decreases to 98% a year - they must be 2% more productive every year to get a 2% raise since they do not have access to the same savings rate as the financial elite. > think is immoral, evil and unfair I (and others) think that children inheriting billions of dollars, giant estates, seats of corporations, and ivy league entry by birth alone is immoral, evil and unfair. That is, a system which created classes of people based on dynasty rather than merit is not fabled capitalism - presumed to be based on merit. What we call for is not communism, but capitalism. A capitalism where there is equal opportunity for hard workers to get ahead. Huge inheritances is one of the largest hurdles to a functioning capitalism.

snitko 12y ago

A society where inheritance is not possible or heavily taxed are doomed to spiral into short-term entertainment consumer economies. That is, people, knowing they can't leave anything to their children, will spend as much as they can on things they don't really need, thus provoking the wrong kind of spending. The question is, if I made my money honestly, do I have the right to spend my money as I please? If yes, then I should be able to leave it to my children, and not to someone else's children. If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair.

jnbiche 12y ago
>If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair If our current system of government weren't rotten to the core, I'd actually agree with you. But so much of the top 1% of net worth has been accumulated through government spending (particularly DoD spending) or corporate welfare (particularly in the finance sector), and that's equally immoral, evil, and unfair.
- snitko 12y ago
  oh, but I agree. I'm not advocating government spending. I'm only saying that in principle, ANY government is corrupt and the most wealth is accumulated by being close to the power (either by lobbying, favoritism, coercion or plain corruption). Government (both as a concept and as a specific entity in each country) is the source of most of the inequalities, not the cure.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    >most wealth is accumulated by being close to the power (either by lobbying, favoritism, coercion or plain corruption) Then you understand why people are so pissed about the 1%? The middle class, particularly under 40, is fucking suffering, man. That's not a good thing. If you're an honest man in the top 1%, you should be working like a demon to change the current system, because having so much resentment against the most wealthy doesn't bode well for your future (either due to extraordinarily high taxes or civil unrest, neither or which I am advocating for).
    - snitko 12y ago
      This is why I believe in Bitcoin and work on its infrastructure. It doesn't need government. You don't need to ask for permission. There is no way you can massively steal it from individual wallets or in many cases even know that someone has a certain amount of money. Governments can't fund wars and can't just bail banks out by more taxation and printing more money. Bitcoin is the answer.
      - jnbiche 12y ago
        Yeah, that's one of the big reasons I got interested in Bitcoin, including contributions to its development. Unfortunately, it has attracted a huge swarm of scammers, pumpers, and other dishonest people as it's grown, so I've lost interest. While all the hacks are unfortunately part of a growing process, security will continue to improve[1]. I'm much more concerned about this type of people Bitcoin has attracted, and that much of its community has promoted. I'm particularly concerned that the constant influx of scammers may be inevitable in an anonymous or pseudonymous, irreversible currency, which a decentralized currency almost necessarily must be. 1. By necessity cryptocurrency may well bring about a rebirth in information security
      - jnbiche 12y ago
        By the way, in case you see this later, I didn't downvote any of your posts. Looks like someone wasn't happy with either of us.
userulluipeste 12y ago
"even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you" But that's valid for a lot of things. Say, although you own a land, you still have to pay taxes on it, and if you won't, in the long run it will be forcefully seized from you. It's just how the society was designed (or "evolved into", if you please), with its laws that we, for the most part, just come to accept. Similar acceptance exists and/or can be (not that it should be) further extended for many other instances. The only necessary thing for imposing such an order is power. An authority has the power over land owners, thanks to the nature of that owned good - being immobile and having an intrinsic value. Now, given the right kind of power, a similar order of things can be forced on pretty much everything!
xnull2guest 12y ago
> A society where inheritance is not possible or heavily taxed are doomed to spiral into short-term entertainment consumer economies 1.) Are there numbers that back up this claim? 2.) I've already heard our society is in a death spiral of short-term entertainment and consumerism (and for reasons deeper than an estate tax). How do you suppose that an estate tax is somehow more fundamental? > That is, people, knowing they can't leave anything to their children, will spend as much as they can on things they don't really need, thus provoking the wrong kind of spending. Again numbers. Or any kind of precedent? Might one suggest that the children who inherit the wealth but don't have the work ethic are provoked into the wrong kind of spending? This claim seems all the work of narrative and no work of empirical grounding. > The question is, if I made my money honestly, do I have the right to spend my money as I please? That is not the question. It is one question in a long list of questions. Another question is how much of a right does someone have to do "A" before it interferes with the rights of others (the foundation of our values) - in cases where "A" is wealth accumulation there does exist points at which the rest of society is hurt. And in fact, nobody is suggesting that you may not pass inheritance, just that it be taxed like everything else. In fact taxed heavily. > If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair. It is a far, far cry from communism. Remember Locke's own concept of property - no land or wealth is owned by anyone, a person merely the products of their own labor (an apple for picking it, a crop for sewing it). The wealthy in this country and in modern capitalism have not earned the wealth by working the fields. They own the machines that work the field and pay the labor force that works the field. That is to say, they own the vaunted 'means of production'. Essentially, wealth creates and captures wealth. Piketty's analysis of this is damning. Piketty's framework is simple: An individual with accumulated capital's purpose is to live from their accumulated capital and grow the rest faster than inflation, so that their accumulation grows. When the savings rate (today for the top elite ~10%) outstrips the inflation rate (~1.2%), accumulated wealth grows. But workers wealth, which doesn't grow at 110% per year, actually decreases to 98% a year - they must be 2% more productive every year to get a 2% raise since they do not have access to the same savings rate as the financial elite. > think is immoral, evil and unfair I (and others) think that children inheriting billions of dollars, giant estates, seats of corporations, and ivy league entry by birth alone is immoral, evil and unfair. That is, a system which created classes of people based on dynasty rather than merit is not fabled capitalism - presumed to be based on merit. What we call for is not communism, but capitalism. A capitalism where there is equal opportunity for hard workers to get ahead. Huge inheritances is one of the largest hurdles to a functioning capitalism.