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Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

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Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#291

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dagw wrote: post #127
oblio wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a different, cheaper, part of the world Key words :) Real estate is 90% "location, location, location".

Obviously. My point is that if you just saw a picture of that house your first thought wouldn't be "Wow, I bet one of the richest people in world lives there". Compare to for example this house: http://luxurylaunches.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Le-Belv... which would be expensive basically no matter where in the world you where. And even with it's perfect location it's apparently still 'only' a ~4 million eur. hou…

Well depending on the body of water it's on my first thought would probably be "which billionaire owns that"

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#292

Post by wahern »

bsbechtel wrote: post #256
viraptor wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a friend accountant/layer said: there will always be people coming to us, spending 51k to avoid paying 50k of taxes, and we'll help them arrange that. Legal isn't the same as moral, so sometimes the legal limit becomes meaningless.

51k going to an accountant in your community is probably a more moral way to spend your money than 50k going to fund a war. If one is going to judge a client's morality by his eagerness to spend more money than his tax bill in order to avoid paying that bill, that same moral lens needs to be applied to the accountant knowingly charging his client more than the client would save in taxes.

OTOH, the fervor with which some people avoid taxes evidences a lack of civic responsibility. If people don't feel invested in their government to the point of spitefully taking a loss just to avoid paying a tax it makes it easier for ethically bankrupt people to assume the reigns of power. That kind of leadership is how we get into wars in the first place.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#293

Post by adrianmonk »

jessriedel wrote: post #253
adrianmonk wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as we're exploring punctuation, the apostrophe in that case is valid and correct, but it's growing obsolete as it becomes more normal to write "70s". https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/9199/do-decades-ever...

I think it's beyond "more normal", right? https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13631/is-an-apos... Almost all the style guides recommend no apostophes on the end. Rather, apostrophes are reserved for numerals that are lefts out, i.e., '60s or 1960s, but not 1960's.

I guess it depends on how you define acceptable usage.

Only a generation ago, it was widely taught to include the apostrophe. Even then it wasn't universal, but it was one recommended way to do it.

For example, I have on my bookshelf "Webster's NewWorld Dictionary, Third College Edition" (copyright 1994) which says on p. 1560: "An apostrophe is used ... to show certain coined plurals. ... Figures may take either an apostrophe and an s or an s alone. 1990s or 1990's".

It also mentions a rule about using apostrophes with plurals of abbreviations if the abbreviations include internal periods, and it gives the examples of "Ph.D.'s" and "ICBMs". I guess internal periods have fallen out of favor too.

Anyway, the overall point here is it was taught this way relatively recently, and I don't think language moves so fast that what was taught a generation or two ago isn't considered acceptable usage. I'd call it correct but archaic.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#294

Post by goty2 »

vec wrote: post #281
stale2002 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with socialists policies like this is not necessarily the high taxes or the hostile takeover aspect of it. The issue is the intent. When socialists start doing stuff like this, it is clear what the long term goal is. The long term goal is to take the means of production from those who have it, though whatever politically palpable means necessary. Sure, they start off doing a voluntary stock buyout program…

Looks to me like the Swedish people did, in fact, come to the conclusion their socialist policy didn't work and reversed it via the normal political process. According to the wiki, the Social Democrats retook power three years later and didn't attempt to reintroduce it. That looks to me like pretty compelling historical evidence against the hypothesis that socialist experiments must necessarily slide down the slipper…

If anything the Nordic model and social democracy has failed not because it turned into communism, but because it only takes one government to undermine the system and privatize everything. Sweden today is liberal to the extent that it is regularly featured as an example in The Economist on how to privatize more things in the UK.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#295

Post by mongol »

fetbaffe wrote: post #188

One have to remember why this was setup in the way it is, to protect the company forever. In Sweden during the 70-ties 80-ties the Social democrats was pushing a radical socialist agenda ('löntagarfonder') to take over companies by taxing profits and then buying shares with it, all controlled by trade unions. Result of these policies was that many companies left Sweden to protect itself (of course). IKEA, Tetra Pak a…

H&M is not an example of that, it remains in Sweden, its real growth came later than what you are refering. In the 90s however its owner Stefan Persson threatened to move it due to proposed wealth taxes. The workaround was a using tax exception for stocks listed a certain way on public exchanges (O-listan). In the end the government adjusted the tax legislation and H&M stayed. https://www.affarsvarlden.se/bors-ekonominyheter/formogenhet...

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#297

Post by [deleted] »

jessriedel wrote: post #257
ryanlol wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It was not exactly so, as reporters found. His home was a villa overlooking Lake Geneva, and he had an estate in Sweden and vineyards in Provence. He drove a Porsche as well as the Volvo. His cut-rate flights, hotels and meals were taken in part as an exemplar to his executives, who were expected to follow suit, to regard employment by Ikea as a life’s commitment — and to write on both sides of a piece of paper." ht…

Porches are still modest for a mega-billionaire...

[deleted]

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#298

Post by mongol »

bearcobra wrote: post #203
fetbaffe wrote: post #188

One have to remember why this was setup in the way it is, to protect the company forever. In Sweden during the 70-ties 80-ties the Social democrats was pushing a radical socialist agenda ('löntagarfonder') to take over companies by taxing profits and then buying shares with it, all controlled by trade unions. Result of these policies was that many companies left Sweden to protect itself (of course). IKEA, Tetra Pak a…

Any ideas where I could find more details on H&Ms move? They appear to be listed in the Swedish stock exchange and headquartered in Stockholm so I’m curious how they ended up moving back.

I believe that was not factually correct. See my comment elsewhere in the thread.

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#299

Post by sbierwagen »

greensoap wrote: post #246
patentatt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities

Patent attorney? Me too. Have you read the malpractice case in California that basically says that you can't be found to have practiced malpractice for violating the RAP because its too convoluted?

From that article: "It is notoriously difficult to properly apply: in 1961, the Supreme Court of California ruled that it was not legal malpractice for an attorney to draft a will that inadvertently violated the rule." (Emph added)

Presumably California would look less kindly on someone saying to their lawyer, "I want to lock up this money forever", and the lawyer in response saying, "Yes, I will draft your will so that the money will only ever be spent in the manner you command."

Re: Ikea founder leaves fortune to no one, structures it to ensure it lasts forever

#300

Post by rasz »

noetic_techy wrote: post #275
dagw wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was obviously a well crafted image, but hardly one invented out of whole cloth. For example non of the three homes he owned[0] would classify as luxury by any reasonable rich person standard. His 'luxury' house in Switzerland was probably not even among 10 most expensive houses in town and was significantly smaller than most billionaires garages. His house in Sweden is in the middle of nowhere, the sort of place w…

Looks like an average upper middle class house in the US. Hardly swanky.

Its not made out of wood and cardboard.
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