so now it's a tax. up till now it's been seizure of the entire estate upon death, with ad hoc exceptions for dependents and now "heirlooms" but such "heirlooms" are not to be things of real value, only sentimental value right? cuz a sack of dubloons is still "taxable"
The seizure constitutes a tax--it's a forced taking by the government. Heirlooms could have real value, as I already suggested. A coin or jewelry collection might be very valuable but constitute an heirloom (with an exception for sale, when it would be taxable; this might not be very enforceable practically, because people are unlikely to claim those sales as income anyway, but that's not important since the bulk of transferred wealth consists of real property and financial assets).
i havent lost my motivation, thats your assumption. i lost my grandfathers farm.
and no, many people besides me would burn their shit down before they sacrificed it to the government, my grandfather certainly would have if he had known what was coming.
your SILLY NOTION is a vile example of complete ignorance and sophistry wrapped in a veneer of decent grammar. the thinking behind your posts would be better served with clumsy misspelling and transposition of numbers for letters of similar shape.
It was your implication, not mine. As for the great fire, the reaction humans promise often differs substantially from the reaction in fact. Most people aren't going to destroy anything. And if you're really that concerned about it, why don't we impose a penalty on the heirs of people who destroy their property? Since the anger resulted from the government's seizure of property in a manner that would disadvantage heirs, the angry man probably wouldn't entertain making those heirs
worse off rather than just not any better off.
i say you havent thought it out because im hoping your just ignorantly bleating what your really shitty economics or poli-sci professor told you. if you actually set your brain to work and came up with this SILLY NOTION after any length of rumination, then i feel bad for you. your SILLY NOTION is halfassed at best. if you used your whole ass to develop this SILLY NOTION, then i pity you.
I've never had a professor talk about anything like this. All me. You're getting rather short on substance for someone so convinced that he's right. Is that because you realize that realistically and empirically there's not much support for your claims about human behavior, which are the forefront of your argument against my notion? I would love to hear meaningful criticisms, so I regret that you've been so short on them.
you view economics and politics through the perverted prism of the Me Generation. The same generation whose parents fought tooth and nail through the depression to build a "nest egg' put their hippy asses through college, and provide them with an inheritance (even if it was meager) but when they reached the end of their working years, they embraced "spenddown" so they could have all their medical costs covered by medicare, reverse mortgages so their houses would evaporate upon their death, and 'retirement planning" with a net estate of ZERO left over at their death.
your SILLY NOTION is already an optional choice, and a very popular option for the asshole Me generation. but anyone who looks at their "choice" from the perspective of my generation see them for what they are, selfish dinks who dont give a rat's ass about their kids or grandkids. they are the ultimate evolution of the Consumer, they produce just enough to pay their taxes, maintain their lives and reproduce, and any accidental excess is Consumed back into the system. and you think that is a virtue. i would call it short sighted, foolish and self-defeating.
your final stanza is partially right, most people today DONT make decisions based on the future, but they dont think they need to. social security, government healthcare programs, promises of pensions and all the other windowdressing of modern consumerism is designed to encourage a thoughtless heedless careless creature who eats when hungry, fucks when horny, sleeps when feeling lazy and gives no care to the future, cuz thats the other guy's problem.
people like me, raised in a rural setting dont have your problem with foresight, we think planning ahead is a GOOD thing, and building an enterprise that secures the future for your progeny is a virtue. but then you, and people like you value short term pleasure, immediate gratification, and the future is "Future Tokeprep's" problem, let that asshole worry about that, meanwhile, "Right Now Tokeprep" is too busy twittering his lunch menu to the world and updating his facespace with videos of himself "unboxing" the new My Little Pony Brushable he just got from target.
We both agree that parents have a responsibility to their progeny. Your premise is that it's a financial responsibility: essentially to "build something" for future generations that will leave them better off than you were. My premise is that it's a social responsibility: essentially that parents should raise their children to work hard, encourage them to develop their strengths and talents, and enable them to lead their own successful lives.
Rather than striving to leave our progeny financial resources, we should strive to leave them stronger and more responsible people who will work for themselves and continue the progress we made rather than simply living off of it. I would turn your premise around on you, actually: people often selfishlessly focus on financial resources because they fucked up with their kids (abusing them, not being involved in their lives, not encouraging and developing them, whatever) and want to ease their guilt with money. Why change or work to fix any of that when you can just leave some money later and make everything better? Isn't it moronic for people to assume that money is what matters?
I must make clear at this point that I am not referring to all wealthy people. Obviously some--many, I'm sure--do what both of us want, which is to raise their kids well and leave them financial resources. Perhaps you come from such a family, and I agree that people in that situation are far less likely to abuse their wealth. But there were some wonderful nobles too who did good things for humanity, right? Why permit the tyranny of all the others just to capture that good? What's controlling is that it's unnecessary. People who earn wealth will have it, just as people who earn power have it now; the difference is that the motivating object is available to anyone in the world, not just a select group who inherited the right.
What's "short-sighted, foolish and self-defeating" is believing that having more money makes everything better. What if making everyone in this world work hard, always motivated to earn whatever it is they want, is actually more optimal? I assert that it must be, just as democracy is a better form of government than dictatorship. We should want to empower all people, our own children and everyone else, not to simply leave them assets behind. Us versus them is actually the silly notion here! Society was enabled in the first place by human cooperation, with people competing on merit rather than with force. What's unfair and wrong about force is that someone who didn't earn something by creation also destroyed the ability or incentive of another person to create. Competition on merit encourages all people to create value that they can trade for other value.
Rather than playing us versus them, parents should encourage creation. Would you want your child to have wealth they didn't earn, say if it came from stealing cars? Your child is winning--they have more--but not because they deserved it. Perhaps you'll defend this, but most people wouldn't--the wealth the child took destroyed value. I want my child to get what they deserve, not to arbitrarily select them as winners of the competition who got what they had without working for it.
Wouldn't one of the few lucky people poised to inherit be selfish for complaining that nothing got left behind when they never earned it? They're valuing their detached consumption above the consumption of the earner. Wealth belongs to the earner, not some other taker--the earner isn't selfish for spending their own hard-earned money when their children are perfectly capable of earning it themselves, just as the earner did. You bemoan entitlements for encouraging a "thoughtless heedless careless creature," yet inheritance is just an entitlement, and fairness is "the other guy's problem." Rather than creating for those future generations you express concern about, the inheriters are happily milking what they've got. Screw the rest of humanity--us versus them--is precisely the attitude that harms all of humanity. It's much better for all of us to play the game.
And "Right Now Tokeprep" would never--
never--twitter.
dont fret about the future, the government has a plan for you.
youll make good quality soylent green im sure.
The government? Society should have a plan for society, enacted by society. Just as we admitted that it was silly to have been dominated by a small group of ordained nobility for most of our history, we should now admit that it's silly to be dominated by a small group of ordained wealthy. When we permitted freedom and control by the people, the economy and our standard of living expanded like never before. When we permit freedom and control from generational wealth transfer, we'll see the same result as the distortions inheritance causes can finally lift. The result is more fairness, more emphases on merit, and greater prosperity for all people.
