Earlier quoted context omitted.
> deserve ?? Who gets to determine who deserves what?
I suggest it is not difficult to find a better determinator than parental wealth.
Likewise there must be one better than envy.
More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
51–60 of 230 posts
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they where talking not about tbills, guilts or consols but riskier shares
The rise of passive investment strategies has neatly proved that no skill and little luck is required to grow existing capital in the modern society.
So what are you waiting on?
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#53Won’t this eventually happen in the United States too? What’s stopping it other than a later start. There’s more entrepreneurial spirit perhaps but the sons and daughters of wealth creators will still inherit.
Read the chapter “Economic Outpatient Care” in Thomas Stanley’s The Millionaire Next Door to learn how poorly on average American millionaires pass to their children the skills necessary to build wealth.
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#54Piketty 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…
How then is it possible that some four in five American millionaires inherited no more than ten thousand dollars, according to The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley?
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#55When I was stationed in Germany in my twenties as an American military wife, the Berlin Wall came down and the Two Germanies reunited. An East German aunt went to visit West German relatives, then visited relatives who had immigrated to the US. She said that "Compared to East Germany, everyone in West Germany looks rich. Then you go to the US and everyone looks like on (the nighttime soap) Dallas."
My maternal grandmother came from a low level German noble family that sold the family title when they fell on hard times. Given my aunt's assessment of wealth distribution in relation to nationality, I guess mom made the right decision coming here.
(Edited to clarify my nationality in response to a question. I did not realize I left that out. Oops.)
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#56Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#57> 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…
The War, maybe.. or perhaps the social-democratic policies that followed in many countries after the great depression and the war.
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Wars, sickness and starvation have been great equalizers. The last ones were decades ago and there is no sign of it coming back any time soon. We're living in unprecedented times.
Or was it the social-democratic politics that follow war, sickness and starvation?
Or if you're right-leaning maybe you would argue that it was the high growth that was a great equalizer.
Or perhaps a mix of these. I don't see social-liberalism going away in Europe. And while growth might not be same as it used to be, technology is likely to keep disrupting established businesses.
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the tax system treats unearned income and wealth more favourably than earned income. The income was taxed when it was earned. What reason is there to tax it twice? > how you feel about in increase in unearned income flowing to the wealthy I guess. Or about how you feel about the government's use of it's citizen's resources. Why should wealth earned by the breadwinner of the family, not remain with the family? It's…
Why do you tax income? That's a disincentive to be productive, that's not good - we want people to be productive. Taxing wealth is basically paying a rent to the society that allows that wealth to exist. Your land in manhattan is only worth $10m because society hasn't gone all Syrian. Your copyright holding over your film is only worth anything because we don't let people freely copy it. When the wealth is owned by t…
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)
Re: More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe
#60I was just discussing this as a result of watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-asltUUvcGU in which they discuss the result of the western capitalist system loosely resembling a meritocracy, except in the case of inherited wealth. An exceptionally productive individual can generate billions, but then when he dies the money goes to his heirs which may not have done anything to deserve commanding that m…
I encourage you to read The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley because it will disabuse you of these and many other prejudices.
Since you appear to have read that book, maybe you could summarize the part that you have in mind?