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Spanish minister proposes €20k ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18

theguardian.com

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Re: Spanish minister proposes €20k ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18

#3
I think that would be a great idea. Except that I would put the age of receiving that inheritance at about 30.

It's one of the ironies of life that when you are young you have time but no money, and when you are old you have money and no time.

Think how great it would be if you got that money while you were still young enough to use it, and old enough to use it wisely.

Re: Spanish minister proposes €20k ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18

#4

I think that would be a great idea. Except that I would put the age of receiving that inheritance at about 30. It's one of the ironies of life that when you are young you have time but no money, and when you are old you have money and no time. Think how great it would be if you got that money while you were still young enough to use it, and old enough to use it wisely.

Exactly. There’s a lot of danger waiting for you when you grow up and leave home. Money would certainly solve some problems, but if everyone knew every 20 year old had a big check they could go get a piece of, it will cause many more problems.

30 year olds will also have the same bullseye painted on their backs, but will at least have experience.

Re: Spanish minister proposes €20k ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18

#5

I think that would be a great idea. Except that I would put the age of receiving that inheritance at about 30. It's one of the ironies of life that when you are young you have time but no money, and when you are old you have money and no time. Think how great it would be if you got that money while you were still young enough to use it, and old enough to use it wisely.

Why not 20K every year? Get rid of all government programs ( welfare, healthchare, social security, etc ) and replace it with a universal yearly $20K.

The only downside is that it would collapse the war machine since no 18 year old will sign up for the military.

Re: Spanish minister proposes €20k ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18

#7

Are there enough rich people in Spain to redistribute and give everyone aged 18+ €20k?

Well, if just counting all the billionaires [1], they have a total net worth of ~135 billion, and there's currently ~47MM people in Spain [2], so if you sent out the stormtroopers and forcefully confiscated every last penny of net worth from all the billionaires, and redistributed it equally, each person would get a one-time payment of ~2,800. I'd theorize that the resulting destruction to the economy/country in the process would probably ultimately wipe more wealth from the people than 2,800 per person, but hey, maybe not.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_billionaires_b... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain

Re: Spanish minister proposes €20k ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18

#9

I think that would be a great idea. Except that I would put the age of receiving that inheritance at about 30. It's one of the ironies of life that when you are young you have time but no money, and when you are old you have money and no time. Think how great it would be if you got that money while you were still young enough to use it, and old enough to use it wisely.

Why not 20K every year? Get rid of all government programs ( welfare, healthchare, social security, etc ) and replace it with a universal yearly $20K. The only downside is that it would collapse the war machine since no 18 year old will sign up for the military.

Aren’t we currently experiencing inflation at least partially due to government stimulus handouts during Covid? I know there are multiple causes but free money certainly didn’t help.

Also, I think it is a good idea to keep government programs means tested and separate. If you give people 20k, the number of people who should be feeding their kids with the money but instead bought “new rims” for their 2007 Honda Civic is going to be much greater than zero.

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