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It’s better to be born rich than gifted

washingtonpost.com

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Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#161

Post by jesssse »

dahart wrote: post #160
jesssse wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the trends in public budgets directly funding colleges, but... Government backed student loans for anybody who wants them has inflated the cost of college in the United States. Your plan I refer to, is when you said the government could entirely pay college costs for every willing student. With all that free money, where is the motivation for schools to improve? > we could fund university education…

> Government backed student loads for anybody who wants them has inflated the cost of college in the United States. I heard it the first time. Do you have anything new to add, any evidence, or any explanation of how your theory actually works, given that total public funding has declined? Is it possible you’re assigning causation where there is only correllation? Tuition hikes certainly correllate with loan programs…

I will read this pdf and bing some articles about "total public funding" and see what I believe.

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/B...

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#162

Post by mrep »

jesssse wrote: post #131
jacobolus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just educational outcomes. More money has massively diminishing returns to happiness, health, fitness, longevity, creative output, ... The biggest constraint is often individual people’s time/attention; additional money is only slightly (if at all) helpful for the already rich. But a little bit of money goes a long way to help people who are not eating well, don’t have a place to live, need to work 3 stressful pa…

I do not see inheritance as a problem. My motivation for accumulating wealth is largely driven by a desire to provide for my future family members. Inheritance tax is theft.

Money is generally taxed anytime it changes hands so an inheritance tax seems fine to me. Although, a 90% one would be ridiculous.

Also, if you are in the US, the estate tax is now $11.18 million per taxpayer (so 22 million for a couple) due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. As a result, only approximately 2,000 people (or 0.0006% of the population) in the US are currently liable for estate tax [0] so you should be fine unless you already have fuck you money at which point it doesn't really matter because again, you have fuck you money.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_State...

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#163

Post by bsheir74 »

jesssse wrote: post #131
jacobolus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just educational outcomes. More money has massively diminishing returns to happiness, health, fitness, longevity, creative output, ... The biggest constraint is often individual people’s time/attention; additional money is only slightly (if at all) helpful for the already rich. But a little bit of money goes a long way to help people who are not eating well, don’t have a place to live, need to work 3 stressful pa…

I do not see inheritance as a problem. My motivation for accumulating wealth is largely driven by a desire to provide for my future family members. Inheritance tax is theft.

"My motivation for accumulating wealth is largely driven by a desire to provide for my future family members. inheritance tax is theft."

So its bad because it would hurt you.

This is the problem. The way you think. Estate taxes could pay for services that help the poor and inprove our society as a whole. But you're only concerned with making sure your own kids get out ok.

But thats your job as a parent. I get it. You see a dog eat dog world out there, and you wanna get your kids out alive. But just why are we so scared? Why is everyone fighting over scraps?

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#164

Post by kazinator »

bsheir74 wrote: post #163
jesssse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not see inheritance as a problem. My motivation for accumulating wealth is largely driven by a desire to provide for my future family members. Inheritance tax is theft.

"My motivation for accumulating wealth is largely driven by a desire to provide for my future family members. inheritance tax is theft." So its bad because it would hurt you. This is the problem. The way you think. Estate taxes could pay for services that help the poor and inprove our society as a whole. But you're only concerned with making sure your own kids get out ok. But thats your job as a parent. I get it. You…

"Hurts me is bad" is an excellent line of reasoning; I can hardly imagine a valid reproach. You can't dictate to another person that what hurts them is good.

> But you're only concerned with making sure your own kids get out ok.

I can't speak for grandparent, but I'm concerned with all the kids getting their rightful inheritance from all their respective parents, not only my kids.

That said, I don't think there is anything wrong with providing for your kids and not others.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#165

Post by jacobolus »

ageek123 wrote: post #155
jacobolus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just educational outcomes. More money has massively diminishing returns to happiness, health, fitness, longevity, creative output, ... The biggest constraint is often individual people’s time/attention; additional money is only slightly (if at all) helpful for the already rich. But a little bit of money goes a long way to help people who are not eating well, don’t have a place to live, need to work 3 stressful pa…

Even if you taxed estates at 100% you wouldn't contribute any meaningful amount of money compared to total government revenue or expenditures. So let's be honest, it's about punishing wealthy people (and accepting all the downsides to society of doing that), not actually helping people.

The point is not the amount of revenue. The point is that having billion-dollar inheritances creates incredibly skewed political incentives which end up leading to significant harms.

If they taxed the estates at a high marginal rate with no gaping loopholes, auctioned off all the assets thereby recovered by the government, and then just zeroed out the bits representing the dollars in the resulting accounts, that would be just fine with me.

Ultra ultra wealthy people are not being “punished” by having their estates taxed at a steep top marginal rate. The great-great-grandchildren of industry titans do not have a preordained right to massive wealth at the whole society’s expense. Money is a social construct, and can and should be designed to work for all of us.

In a functioning society with a growing (or even stagnant) economy, each generation should inherit a greater wealth of public infrastructure, capital, services, knowledge, ... than the previous one. Instead, in our society there is an incentive for public officials to transfer collective assets to individual aristocrats in corrupt deals, to underfund/destroy public institutions, to take out loans guaranteed by the state and pocket the money, etc., impoverishing the next generation. This amounts to basically theft/fraud against the polis.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#166

Post by jacobolus »

kazinator wrote: post #164
bsheir74 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My motivation for accumulating wealth is largely driven by a desire to provide for my future family members. inheritance tax is theft." So its bad because it would hurt you. This is the problem. The way you think. Estate taxes could pay for services that help the poor and inprove our society as a whole. But you're only concerned with making sure your own kids get out ok. But thats your job as a parent. I get it. You…

"Hurts me is bad" is an excellent line of reasoning; I can hardly imagine a valid reproach. You can't dictate to another person that what hurts them is good. > But you're only concerned with making sure your own kids get out ok. I can't speak for grandparent, but I'm concerned with all the kids getting their rightful inheritance from all their respective parents, not only my kids. That said, I don't think there is an…

There is nothing “rightful” about a 100 million dollar inheritance (or whatever). Just like there is nothing “rightful” about inheriting a royal throne. Money is an arbitrary social convention, and wealth is generated by the whole society not by single individuals.

Inheritances that provide centuries of descendants with a work-free life and the power/influence to corrupt the government make a grotesque mockery of our society / politics.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#167

Post by kazinator »

jacobolus wrote: post #166
kazinator wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hurts me is bad" is an excellent line of reasoning; I can hardly imagine a valid reproach. You can't dictate to another person that what hurts them is good. > But you're only concerned with making sure your own kids get out ok. I can't speak for grandparent, but I'm concerned with all the kids getting their rightful inheritance from all their respective parents, not only my kids. That said, I don't think there is an…

There is nothing “rightful” about a 100 million dollar inheritance (or whatever). Just like there is nothing “rightful” about inheriting a royal throne. Money is an arbitrary social convention, and wealth is generated by the whole society not by single individuals. Inheritances that provide centuries of descendants with a work-free life and the power/influence to corrupt the government make a grotesque mockery of our…

The main reason there is nothing rightful about inheriting a royal throne is that there is nothing rightful about holding it in the first place.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#169

Post by lazyjones »

geocar wrote: post #110
lazyjones wrote: post #58

So we measure „better“ in life using academic success now? Is academic success the ultimate goal in life, the key to happiness? Or is the WP just pushing typical political propaganda using fake science these days?

"Academic success" as a useful proxy because of how it predicts income, health, longevity, and so on [1], [2], [3]. I'm not sure whether "fake science" in the absence of obvious, easy-to-google evidence is mere intellectual laziness, or if you actually believe that because some people are successful (by many reasonable measures) without an education that this somehow means that education itself is not valuable. In ei…

> it predicts income, health, longevity, and so on [1], [2], [3].

We already knew that rich people live longer, so what's the point in using "academic success" as an intermediate predictor?

> if you actually believe that because some people are successful (by many reasonable measures) without an education that this somehow means that education itself is not valuable.

Straw man.

It's not a valid (scientific) conclusion to apply the result of correlation studies on a large mixed group to selected subgroups and assume it will apply equally. IOW, rich people with college degree might not live longer than those without just because the general population does.

But my point was something else: a better life is neither measured by wealth nor academic success or life expectancy at 25. It's entirely subjective and such click-baity titles are misleading. It should read "it's better for academic success to be born rich than gifted", but then it would't be sensationalist enough.

Re: It’s better to be born rich than gifted

#170

Post by gnicholas »

mrep wrote: post #162
jesssse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not see inheritance as a problem. My motivation for accumulating wealth is largely driven by a desire to provide for my future family members. Inheritance tax is theft.

Money is generally taxed anytime it changes hands so an inheritance tax seems fine to me. Although, a 90% one would be ridiculous. Also, if you are in the US, the estate tax is now $11.18 million per taxpayer (so 22 million for a couple) due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. As a result, only approximately 2,000 people (or 0.0006% of the population) in the US are currently liable for estate tax [0] so you should…

> if you are in the US, the estate tax is now $11.18 million per taxpayer

I think you mean estate tax exemption.

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