How Rich Kids Get a Head Start

[Kulindahr]

Do not destroy our economy in pursuit of fictitious stereotypes. The rich do not become rich by defrauding people. Ours is not a zero sum economy. That is, people do not become rich by taking it from the poor. The poor are not poor because someone else took the money. This notion is a carry over from pre industrial times when most income came from the land. If the peasants wanted more, the land owner had to accept less. And vice versa. But production after the industrial revolution is not that limited.
Most of the people in the world would be happy to live in a country like ours where it is easy to become rich. Justin Bieber is said to be worth 20 million. Oprah, 2 billion. Zucherberg of Facebook, 40+ billion. Leonard di Caprio 300 million. Even people in prosperous countries like Sweden and Germany, no not have the opportunities which Americans have.

For most people nowadays it isn't a "carryover" from anywhere, it comes from observation.

BTW, it is NOT "easy to become rich" in the U.S.; compared to most of the developed world it's very difficult. The facts of that situation keep getting posted here, but you ignore them.

Stop living in some old propaganda and take a look at the real world. The effect of taxes in the U.S. is that those on the lower end of the economic spectrum are worse off proportionally after taxes than those on the top, which means we have a tax system that is serving to move money up the ladder and concentrate it at the top. Those are the policies the GOP supports, and they are policies that crush opportunity, they don't create it.

 

[Kulindahr]

Inheritence is the cornerstone of aristocracy.
I thought that old school European aristocratic systems would be un-American to someone like yourself.
So much for that 'land of opportunity' thing that differentiated the new world from the old, eh?

Inheritance is a system that rests on the assumption that some people should get things they didn't work to earn.

 

[Kulindahr]

Inheritance is not income. Much of it is in other assets; a home, a business, farm land, corporate stock. Taxing it as income would force families to sell farms, businesses and often large businesses. Much of the value would simply evaporate by supply and demand and the incentive to work and build would be destroyed. Much of it has already been taxed as income and taxing it again as inciome is neither fair nor sound. Communism does not work, and if the government confiscates the capital, capitalism cannot work. The federal estate tax and state inheritance taxes are excessive now.
It makes no sense to punish the successful and reward the unsuccessful and indolent.

Of course it's income -- unearned income, at that.


BTW, the "it's already been taxed" argument is ridiculous: we already tax money just about every time it changes hands. Why should this change of hands be different?

As for businesses, if there's going to be an inheritance tax the law should allow for a family to break the ownership into pieces not large enough to trigger that tax by giving shares to brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, employees, whoever. The tax should hit only individual pieces, not the entire estate, and if those pieces are made small enough they should glide right on by the tax system.

 

[Vitamin]

Karl Marx agreed.

Most have stolen the idea from Thomas Jefferson.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/2006/11/thomas_jefferso.html

 

[Benvolio]

Inheritance is a system that rests on the assumption that some people should get things they didn't work to earn.

No it rests on the assumption that people work harder when they can accumulate savings and pass it to their children rather than having it confiscated by the state.

 

[Benvolio]

Interesting post, but it isn't talking to people here. No one is talking "confiscation", or "equality" -- especially in the erroneous demagoguery senses you're using them for.

Our economy would be stronger if the wealth were spread out. An inheritance tax does nothing to accomplish that, but an inheritance limit would -- and the person who accumulated it would get to decide where it went.

You are talking about confiscation. If the purpose of so called tax is to take it from those whom you deem to have too much, is confiscation. "Taxation" is merely the procedure used to take it from those who have too much but it is confiscation. It has to be called taxation to make it seem Constitutional. The Constitution allows taxation, it does not allow the taking of property for public use without compensation. The Constitution does not authorize the taking of property from someone because they "have too much".

 

[Kabluey]

You are talking about confiscation. If the purpose of so called tax is to take it from those whom you deem to have too much, is confiscation. "Taxation" is merely the procedure used to take it from those who have too much but it is confiscation. It has to be called taxation to make it seem Constitutional. The Constitution allows taxation, it does not allow the taking of property for public use without compensation. The Constitution does not authorize the taking of property from someone because they "have too much".

The point of taxation is that a country needs income to function, and some can afford taxation more than others.

You can argue the constitutionality of tax all you wish, but fundamentally it is required. Death taxes have existed since Roman times in various forms.

Do you really believe things like foreign wars, social security, and border security are funded by vapour?

Why are you so interested in protecting people who have significant wealth? Surely they can defend themselves.

 

[Benvolio]

The point of taxation is that a country needs income to function, and some can afford taxation more than others.

You can argue the constitutionality of tax all you wish, but fundamentally it is required. Death taxes have existed since Roman times in various forms.

Do you really believe things like foreign wars, social security, and border security are funded by vapour?

Why are you so interested in protecting people who have significant wealth? Surely they can defend themselves.

You miss the point entirely. This thread is not about reasonable taxation so the government can function. The thread is about increasing taxation to eliminate the advantage that "rich kids" have. It is about taking away from those who have too much. You like all liberals, think that some taxation is necessary, so more and more and more is better, while most voters get a free ride.

 

[Benvolio]

Most have stolen the idea from Thomas Jefferson.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/2006/11/thomas_jefferso.html

Jefferson was deeply in debt most of his life. And if you read the quote from him I'm the link, he thought that when a man dies, his widow and kids should get the property without have to pay the creditors of the deceased. He was not arguing against inheritance.

 

[rareboy]

Jefferson is notoriously inconsistent in his thinking.

For instance, he apparently was also fully in favour of people being given something for nothing at the expense of others.

As a result, Jefferson proposed in Notes on the State of Virginia that “Every person of full age neither owning nor having owned [50] acres of land, shall be entitled to an appropriation of [50] acres in full and absolute dominion, and no other person shall be capable of taking an appropriation.” In this context, Jefferson had in mind distribution of currently unowned or unused land on the frontier, not redistribution of property that was currently being put to productive use.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/2006/11/thomas_jefferso.html

The logical flaw? The land had already been taken by someone else or paid for by the state or crown, or simply stolen from the native population.

A lot of fortunes in colonial America were made on what people were given for free or what they simply took from others. Including the labour of slaves. Not a good role model for this century.

And any idea of debts against an estate dying with the man are tantamount to simply theft from the creditors.

 

[Benvolio]

He also wanted no manufacturing in the US, as he explained im the Notes on the State of Virginia. He hated banks and people who wanted banks and manufacturing.

 

[rareboy]

So coming back to this......one could argue that all those rich southerner children should have been able to keep all the slaves that made it possible for them to live an indolent and pampered existence. Fortunately that didn't happen.

Or that the children of robber barons of the 19th century should have been able to keep all their money. But even their peers recognized the disaster that aggregation of a nation's wealth meant and busted up the monopolies in favour of creating more widespread wealth and thereby saving the country and capitalism itself.

The US is due for another adjustment in order to rebalance the wealth of the nation or face an economic crisis so hard and deep as to lead to the irrevocable shift of the US to a thuggish oligarchy controlled by odious men like the Koch's.

 

[Benvolio]

So coming back to this......one could argue that all those rich southerner children should have been able to keep all the slaves that made it possible for them to live an indolent and pampered existence. Fortunately that didn't happen.

Or that the children of robber barons of the 19th century should have been able to keep all their money. But even their peers recognized the disaster that aggregation of a nation's wealth meant and busted up the monopolies in favour of creating more widespread wealth and thereby saving the country and capitalism itself.

The US is due for another adjustment in order to rebalance the wealth of the nation or face an economic crisis so hard and deep as to lead to the irrevocable shift of the US to a thuggish oligarchy controlled by odious men like the Koch's.

The federal estate tax performs that function, forcing the very wealthy to leave the bulk of their fortune to charities. Countrary to your stereotype much of the greatest wealth today is first generation: Gates, Buffitt, Oprah, all the internet fortunes, the movie stars, pro athletes etc.
A better argument could be that the estate tax deduction for charities should be limited so that the tax would actually go to the government. Gates and Buffett, for instance vote and contribute democrat for high spending but avoid taxes as much as possible, preferring to use a foundation to chose the beneficiaries of their choice, leaving the rest of us to pay for the high spending they voted and contributed for.

 

[Vitamin]

Jefferson is notoriously inconsistent in his thinking.

For instance, he apparently was also fully in favour of people being given something for nothing at the expense of others.


http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/2006/11/thomas_jefferso.html

The logical flaw? The land had already been taken by someone else or paid for by the state or crown, or simply stolen from the native population.

A lot of fortunes in colonial America were made on what people were given for free or what they simply took from others. Including the labour of slaves. Not a good role model for this century.

And any idea of debts against an estate dying with the man are tantamount to simply theft from the creditors.

1. There's quite a bit of inconsistency in your thinking too. You claim that some of the land in question was owned by the state, but the state has no right to give the land away? In what universe does that make sense?

2. "The Crown" was only relevant during Colonial America. I shouldn't have to educate you on when and why that era ended, and I won't bother.

3. It is perfectly legal to refuse an inheritance, at least in the United States, in which case the bank gets the house. Believe me, I already looked into that awhile ago. My parents have refinanced so many times now on their shitty little house, in a shitty little part of the country, that essentially virtually nothing of their mortgage has been paid off. Not because they've ever been in a position where they can't afford their mortgage either, but just because they wanted the lower interest rate. Why is it my fault that the banks were dumb enough to think my parents actually would live into their 90s? And their credit card debt? Nope. No way they can come after me for that. The state might be able to come after me if they have any unpaid medical expenses, assuming it was the state that paid for them in the first place, but for the most part debts do die when their owner does.

 

[Vitamin]

He also wanted no manufacturing in the US, as he explained im the Notes on the State of Virginia. He hated banks and people who wanted banks and manufacturing.

As Jefferson lived well before the Industrial Revolution, he had no reason to be "against manufacturing" as you claim as it did not even exist in the context that it does today. The biggest things being "manufactured" at the time were clothing, and Jefferson was all for clothes being manufactured out of cotton of course, but not wool. I somehow doubt that played a huge part in his politics, however.

He also was not against banks. What he did oppose was Hamilton's idea of a National Bank that would be owned and operated by the federal government. Interestingly enough Hamilton managed convince Congress of a National Bank multiple times, and the bank went under every time he tried it.

 

[Vitamin]

Jefferson was deeply in debt most of his life. And if you read the quote from him I'm the link, he thought that when a man dies, his widow and kids should get the property without have to pay the creditors of the deceased. He was not arguing against inheritance.

Your reading comprehension of English is so embrassingly lacking it seems binary might indeed be your first language. The full quote, is below. The section Ben willfully ignored is in bold below.

I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;" that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. If the society has formed no rules for the appropriation of its lands in severalty, it will be taken by the first occupants. These will generally be the wife and children of the decedent. If they have formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife and children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the deceased. So they may give it to his creditor. But the child, the legatee or creditor takes it, not by any natural right, but by a law of the society of which they are members, and to which they are subject. Then no man can by natural right oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be reverse of our principle.

In other words, Jefferson stated that inheritance is not a natural right by any means, and can be regulated by the state if it chooses to do so.

 

[rareboy]

1. There's quite a bit of inconsistency in your thinking too. You claim that some of the land in question was owned by the state, but the state has no right to give the land away? In what universe does that make sense?

2. "The Crown" was only relevant during Colonial America. I shouldn't have to educate you on when and why that era ended, and I won't bother.

3. It is perfectly legal to refuse an inheritance, at least in the United States, in which case the bank gets the house. Believe me, I already looked into that awhile ago. My parents have refinanced so many times now on their shitty little house, in a shitty little part of the country, that essentially virtually nothing of their mortgage has been paid off. Not because they've ever been in a position where they can't afford their mortgage either, but just because they wanted the lower interest rate. Why is it my fault that the banks were dumb enough to think my parents actually would live into their 90s? And their credit card debt? Nope. No way they can come after me for that. The state might be able to come after me if they have any unpaid medical expenses, assuming it was the state that paid for them in the first place, but for the most part debts do die when their owner does.

No, the state can give anything away it wants to. I was only making the point to our friend Benvolio....who always seem to think the the rich have to work hard for their money, that many people got rich from being handed over something for nothing. This started with Crown Grants but continued on after the US colonies became independent of Britain.

As far as debts, the only thing I'd add is that I don't believe heirs should be responsible for the debts beyond the value of the deceased person's estate, certainly. This might mean that some people will only get ten cents on the dollar, but bankruptcy is also the American way. Trump knows all about how to go bankrupt and keep all your fortune while fucking over all the creditors, certainly.

 

[rareboy]

The federal estate tax performs that function, forcing the very wealthy to leave the bulk of their fortune to charities. Countrary to your stereotype much of the greatest wealth today is first generation: Gates, Buffitt, Oprah, all the internet fortunes, the movie stars, pro athletes etc.
A better argument could be that the estate tax deduction for charities should be limited so that the tax would actually go to the government. Gates and Buffett, for instance vote and contribute democrat for high spending but avoid taxes as much as possible, preferring to use a foundation to chose the beneficiaries of their choice, leaving the rest of us to pay for the high spending they voted and contributed for.

The only reason that many billionaires in America are now first generation is that a lot of the old families did have to relinquish the gilded age...and bred so many children that the estates became quite diffuse.

As for Gates and Buffett....I doubt if their two votes have been responsible for all the horrific debt spending on the military industrial give-away welfare programs of the last 50 years, but unlike the Koch Bros., or Sam Walton and a lot of other rape and pillage capitalists, at least Bill and Melinda Gates have committed all their money to the public good.

I can't believe though that you's be arguing for estates to be taxed to the hilt so that the government could get their hands on the cash instead of the individual having the control over the charitable use of their fortunes. This is incredibly inconsistent thinking from you.

 

[Vitamin]

Bill Gates hardly came from poverty or even the middle class. He came from a quite well off family in Seattle that got him into Columbia.

Buffet wasn't exactly poor either. His father was a Congressman, and I doubt his family felt the Depression at all.

 

[Benvolio]

Your reading comprehension of English is so embrassingly lacking it seems binary might indeed be your first language. The full quote, is below. The section Ben willfully ignored is in bold below.



In other words, Jefferson stated that inheritance is not a natural right by any means, and can be regulated by the state if it chooses to do so.

Look again. I said he did not argue, with Marx, for no inheritance as you claimed in#24. He thought the wire and children would/should ordinarily inherit and do so free from the debts of the deceased.
Why do you feel it necessary to include a personal insult in every post?