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Who died and left the US $7B?

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Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#81

Post by yieldcrv »

manquer wrote: post #48
yieldcrv wrote: post #14

I hope this is educational for people, indeed the forbes rich list is inaccurate and there is no way to know how much anyone is worth, with just 5 minutes of planning it all goes opaque if you so desire Although there is the aspect of the immigrant being grateful for American opportunities, its far more likely that Fayez Sarofim didn’t expect to die and had these naked assets outside of the trusts and nonprofits. Sin…

inaccurate or incomplete ? The latter is to be expected. Forbes only covers certain type of wealthy people for logistical if not also political reasons. It does not cover powerful people who control enormous wealth but ownership maybe murky what is personal wealth and what is state owned, royal families or dictators like Putin or Kim Jong Un or their extended family will never make the list. Beyond those kind of peop…

ok but yes inaccurate was the accurate word choice

I wasnt talking state actors and unlinked crypto fortunes

Just wealth from opaque sources and opaque vehicles

All limited partners in Venture/Hedge/PE funds are opaque for example

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#82

Post by willcipriano »

mynameishere wrote: post #58
jrockway wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can make a voluntary contribution to the United States Treasury: https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html

I always wondered if there was a way to effectively "burn" one's entire wealth, creating a small deflationary event that would increase the value of existing dollars. How could one do this? Donate to the Federal Reserve? Or would you literally have to cash everything out and burn it?

A big part of modern monetary theory is taxing the newly printed money and putting it towards (wasteful) government programs to "burn it" in a sense.

Predictably, politicians who support MMT only did the printing part and skipped that bit once inflation started.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#83

Post by vkou »

bko wrote: post #79
Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

Why is that obscene? Presumably the person created something very valuable to the world. Sure there are zero-sum ways to generate wealth (e.g. suing people, theft, front running trades) but generally that kind of wealth comes from actually generating something that people value.

> Presumably the person created something very valuable to the world

Or they are a rent-seeker, or a straight-up thief that sucked a lot of value out of the world. (Or one of their ancestors did, etc, etc.)

Or they robbed Peter to create value for Paul, and took a share of the difference.

These are all tried and true mechanisms for wealth generation. Without any information, you shouldn't assume that their contributions were net-positive.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#85

Post by jimcsharp »

somethoughts wrote: post #51
Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

Interestingly a lot of the larger philanthropic organizations are just as administration heavy as the US government and suffer from the same mission creep and the same obfuscated, bureaucratic decision making process, etc. Not to mention the leadership is often richly compensated (i.e. $1M in salary) and non-elected. In fact we should probably celebrate gifts to the US government more than we do.

My hunch is that taxes are the most efficient 'charity', even with the bloat, and everyone's too busy sniffing farts in their corner to see it.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#86

Post by IAmNotACellist »

dweinus wrote: post #62
IAmNotACellist wrote: post #54

I can't imagine something more useless than an estate giving money to the US federal government rather than secreting it away via legal tax loopholes and re-investments in new industry.

TIL that in 2024 people are still trying to claim that trickle-down economics works. Given all the wealth at the top these days, I'll expect my trickle-down check in the mail any day now.

You think investment = trickle down economics? Is your 401k trickle down economics?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#87

Post by FabHK »

bko wrote: post #79
Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

Why is that obscene? Presumably the person created something very valuable to the world. Sure there are zero-sum ways to generate wealth (e.g. suing people, theft, front running trades) but generally that kind of wealth comes from actually generating something that people value.

The word “Presumably” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. That Econ101 justification is harder and harder to keep up as you learn more about both economics and the real world.

For detailed counter arguments, see Branko Milanović Global inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, James Kwak Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality, Walt Bogdanich & Michael Forsythe When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm, and many other books.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#88

Post by cipheredStones »

bko wrote: post #79
Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

Why is that obscene? Presumably the person created something very valuable to the world. Sure there are zero-sum ways to generate wealth (e.g. suing people, theft, front running trades) but generally that kind of wealth comes from actually generating something that people value.

The article says that he made it by stock trading. It is, at best, difficult to articulate how that could be creating value rather than capturing it. Many of the world's billionaires made their money that way.

Doing something positive-sum is a way to become a billionaire, but many people are very handsomely paid to ensure that their clients are on the good side of zero-sum transactions.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#89

Post by IAmNotACellist »

chasd00 wrote: post #69
dweinus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIL that in 2024 people are still trying to claim that trickle-down economics works. Given all the wealth at the top these days, I'll expect my trickle-down check in the mail any day now.

Giving $7B to the gov changes zero. Not a single function of the government will change not a single thing. They should have just thrown it in the trash. At least go pay off student loans with a lottery until the money is gone or something, that could help. Maybe pay all the mortgages in a small town or something. What they did by giving it to the gov is the same as setting it on fire in the front yard. It’s kind of…

Plus they'll have increased the deficit by $7B by the time the ink dries on the tax payment check.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#90

Post by wisty »

Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

It's not real money. They aren't holding all the gold like a dragon. Or maybe they are, but that isn't hurting anyone, it's wealth not consumption. They consume the same number of calories as a poor person. They breathe the same amount of air. Maybe they have a few extra bedrooms, but their consumption could easily be less than a millionaire.
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