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More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

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Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#171

Post by learnstats2 »

ericd wrote: post #99
learnstats2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest it is not difficult to find a better determinator than parental wealth.

Are you a parent? I'm not sure you understand what you're playing with here.

I'm not sure what your point is.

Determining someone's future on parental wealth means determining someone's future on a lack of parental wealth - and a vast majority of parents don't have meaningful wealth.

So we're (society is at present) consigning a majority of children to a life of missed opportunity and missed potential. I don't see how that can be a good thing.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#172

Post by wz1000 »

raducu wrote: post #134
arkh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two extreme ways to remove the inheritance problem. One would be to forfeit personal property: you can't give what you don't own. The other would be to remove the concept of family: when born you are placed in a communal system to be raised by professionals. People start with the same chances, the same level of social knowledge, network and vocabulary, you almost get to a pure meritocratic society (there ar…

Not living with your family in you first ~7 years of life has disastrous effects on brain development and emotional health for the rest of your life.

I believe Israeli kibbutz had communal child rearing.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#173

Post by pmontra »

Maybe what follows is naive but wealth is not destroyed when somebody dies, it passes on to heirs. If there isn't an economic boom the share of inherited wealth is going to be larger and larger as time passes. Even succession taxes don't destroy wealth, they distribute it and probably most of it becomes private again (salaries to public servants and private suppliers of public works.)

An extreme example: in Egypt they're making money out of the Pyramids, non inherited businesses (tourism) on the top of inherited public property.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#174

Post by wz1000 »

arkh wrote: post #122
kiliantics wrote: post #27

Piketty showed in Capital that most modern work about the trends in economic inequality was flawed. We usually think of the industrial revolution and modern era as periods where power and wealth became much more fairly distributed. However, if you go far back enough into the records, as he did, you can see a clear trend of concentration of wealth even now in the current system. The trend was briefly disrupted by the…

There are two extreme ways to remove the inheritance problem. One would be to forfeit personal property: you can't give what you don't own. The other would be to remove the concept of family: when born you are placed in a communal system to be raised by professionals. People start with the same chances, the same level of social knowledge, network and vocabulary, you almost get to a pure meritocratic society (there ar…

> There are two extreme ways to remove the inheritance problem. One would be to forfeit personal property: you can't give what you don't own.

You are talking about private property. Personal property is distinct from private property.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#175

Post by lagadu »

zokier wrote: post #7
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #4

> Fascinating chart: more than half of all private wealth has been inherited in Germany, UK, Switzerland, France — trend: rising fast! > Ever less private wealth is accumulated through own work, increasingly more through inheritance. A massive part of people's motivation to work is to provide for their children. That an increasing portion of wealth is inherited rather than build in an individual's working life-time i…

Modern inheritance should be inherently dissipative, as the estate is repeatedly divided among the heirs, amplified by death/inheritance/estate taxation. The problems arise when the wealth accumulation overpowers the dissipative effect of inheritance, combined with increasingly absurdly high wealth levels that go far beyond providing for children and grandchildren. As for the "golden area" you mentioned; yes, the war…

It helps that wealthier people have fewer children, so wealth dissipation affects poorer people dis-proportionally.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#176

Post by earthtolazlo »

topmonk wrote: post #167
arkh wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still benefit from your parent's network, you learn a lot more at a young age at home, you profit from their money while being raised. That's a huge difference between people from poor areas and those from even middle-class families. And that's something advantaged people don't like to think about when they use the meritocratic word: most of them benefited from huge advantages by being born in the right family. O…

Why shouldn't we concentrate most of our effort on those whos' parents succeeded? If the parents had the right mindset and the right genes to succeed, they would in all likelihood pass those onto their children. This mirrors the natural world to a great degree, and to me would seem to allow for a lot more beneficial outcomes then some arbitrary guideline of fairness. What is better, to give $100K in wealth to everyon…

Social Darwinism was bullshit 100 years ago and it’s bullshit today.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#177

Post by ataturk »

arkh wrote: post #122
kiliantics wrote: post #27

Piketty showed in Capital that most modern work about the trends in economic inequality was flawed. We usually think of the industrial revolution and modern era as periods where power and wealth became much more fairly distributed. However, if you go far back enough into the records, as he did, you can see a clear trend of concentration of wealth even now in the current system. The trend was briefly disrupted by the…

There are two extreme ways to remove the inheritance problem. One would be to forfeit personal property: you can't give what you don't own. The other would be to remove the concept of family: when born you are placed in a communal system to be raised by professionals. People start with the same chances, the same level of social knowledge, network and vocabulary, you almost get to a pure meritocratic society (there ar…

I think you're kidding, but just in case not: Communism never did any little guy any favors. I can't even imagine the amount of suffering that would go on for children "raised by professionals" given the amount of documented abuse that takes places in institutions like boarding schools, foster homes, and so forth. Nobody loves a kid like his/her own parents do. Not to say that many families don't abuse their kids, but the idea that society would care better for a child is a concept that has been thoroughly and completely debunked time and time again.

As far as removal of private property, I don't think I like the living conditions in Venezuela, Cuba, or China very much, thanks. Again, nobody cares about property better than its owner, someone with a vested interest in maintaining it.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#178

Post by adamlett »

rorykoehler wrote: post #148
adamlett wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issue i have with tax isn't how much i pay but how it is used. Pardon my french, but that's such bullshit. Everyone who doesn't like to pay taxes has a noble excuse like yours. Sometimes they oppose to taxes being used to fund the arts, even though it's such a minuscule slice of the total pie as to be barely visible. Other times it's something else that they feel is frivolous or opposed to by some principle…

Sorry it's not bullshit. Governments in Europe are especially renowned for the any work is better than none approach and therefore even make up fake jobs to keep their unemployed subjects busy. Protestant work ethic withdrawal is evident and drawn out. Having experienced living in numerous countries i can safely say that taxes are often (not always) poorly spent in Europe. The bureaucracy is over bearing and many job…

Governments in Europe are especially renowned for the any work is better than none approach

Are they now? It used to be true in the east bloc countries when they were all communist, but it's not remotely true in today's Germany where OP lives.

Having experienced living in numerous countries i can safely say that taxes are often (not always) poorly spent in Europe

People say that, and I hear: Taxes are not spent the way I would spend them, if I were in power.

when i see public sector inefficiencies on the scale that they exist in Europe

Please be specific about which inefficiencies your are referring to.

European countries are doing very well on the list of riches countries in the world as measured in GDP per capita. That would be quite surprising if their large public sector really were so horribly inefficient.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#179

Post by mmierz »

stale2002 wrote: post #98
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The income by the inheritor was never earned. Hence it's perfectly logical to tax it.

Yes it was. It was earned by the person who made the money. Would you rather all the wealthy people in the world just blow all their money on yachts or something? Because that is the alternative. Why bother saving money if it is all just going to be confiscated when you die. Instead you should just blow it all on ridiculous things that help nobody but yourself in the immediate time frame.

It doesn’t help “nobody”. It helps people that build yachts. And then the people who sell things to the people that build yachts. And on, and on.

Working people spend their money.

Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe

#180

Post by lagadu »

hjnilsson wrote: post #149
jopsen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea.. so instead of taxing income, you would tax wealth carried from one year to another... That would massively discourage saving. I'm not sure that's great in the long run. In the short run I'll probably lead to massive growth as every goes to burn their dollars on something :) (Arguably it might be a low tax, might even limited to people with a lot of wealth)

Such a tax would have a lower bound on wealth (that is how it works in all countries with wealth tax). Only wealth above a set limit (say 1 million dollars) would be taxed. It would not affect people's incentive to save. In fact, if it makes wealthy people spend more of their money, that could conceivably be a net positive on the economy as well (less stagnant money).

That would just lead to (further) portfolio diversification, where you buy assets abroad purely as a means to store value instead of keeping all your assets under a single country's control.
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