How Rich Kids Get a Head Start

[xbuzzerx]

Your claim was that heirs neither work nor innovate. Wrong.The heirs who are active in management are working and good management innovates.

Large corporations innovate when absolutely forced to do so.

Never before. Innovation requires outlay of money. Even if it's money that will massively repay itself in the long term, they refuse to do it for as long as possible because the corporate model today is entirely about quarterly profit reports.

 

[Benvolio]

Large corporations innovate when absolutely forced to do so.

Never before. Innovation requires outlay of money. Even if it's money that will massively repay itself in the long term, they refuse to do it for as long as possible because the corporate model today is entirely about quarterly profit reports.

Apple comes to mind as an innovator. A big problem is that the manufacturing industries, where innovation is most valuable, have been largely unionized out of the country.

 

[Kabluey]

Apple comes to mind as an innovator. A big problem is that the manufacturing industries, where innovation is most valuable, have been largely unionized out of the country.

There's no legacy management in Apple and no heir appointments.

 

[Benvolio]

There's no legacy management in Apple and no heir appointments.

I was responding to buzz's absurd claim that big corporations do not innovate.

 

[Kabluey]

I was responding to buzz's absurd claim that big corporations do not innovate.

Most don't have to.
Name Comcast's latest innovations.
How about AIG?
EXXON?
Most large corporations are defending their position, startups are where the innovation happens.

Many of the innovations credited to Apple were invented by independent startups, and the startup was purchased by Apple. That's the case for their operating system, for mapping technologies, camera technologies, their cloud technologies, phone technologies, touchscreen tech.

They're also notorious for buying suppliers of patented technologies that are used by multiple competitors and then turning off the tap, to the detriment of consumers who want choice and value for money. Not the best example of innovation in some ways...

 

[Kulindahr]

Large corporations innovate when absolutely forced to do so.

Never before. Innovation requires outlay of money. Even if it's money that will massively repay itself in the long term, they refuse to do it for as long as possible because the corporate model today is entirely about quarterly profit reports.

There are exceptions. They make good investments.

AT & T was one until the government busted it up. Now phone companies are just electronic robbers.

 

[Kulindahr]

A big problem is that the manufacturing industries, where innovation is most valuable, have been largely unionized out of the country.

American manufacturing did more to kill itself than the unions ever did, by refusing to innovate. It was that refusal to innovate that handed Japan its economy.

 

[xbuzzerx]

I was responding to buzz's absurd claim that big corporations do not innovate.

Buying IP's or purchasing and gutting startups that are innovating and/or branding whatever they innovated is not the same thing as innovating.

 

[otters]

A big problem is that the manufacturing industries, where innovation is most valuable, have been largely unionized out of the country.

I thought you were old enough to know better.

Hm, have you ever had the enjoyment to handle a 35 mm camera MADE IN USA?

No?

What a pity.

 

[otters]

American manufacturing did more to kill itself than the unions ever did, by refusing to innovate. It was that refusal to innovate that handed Japan its economy.

Exactly.

See my 35 mm camera example.

BTW, Japan has quite strong unions… Benvolio's logic is not really working…

 

[evanrick]

if they worship money then they are godless who believe people places and things can be owned and abused. mitt romney's 47% comment was a prime example of such godless actors.

 

[Kulindahr]

Exactly.

See my 35 mm camera example.

BTW, Japan has quite strong unions… Benvolio's logic is not really working…

As a quality engineer assigned to negotiate with some Japanese customers, my sister discovered that not only did the Japanese corporations insist on 100% inspection of parts they were ordering, their unions demanded it: the workers had no intention of assembling or using products with less than that degree of quality.

U.S. unions participate in the society's streak of antagonism, the us v them dichotomy which benvolio embraces -- and THAT is why U.S. unions became a problem, not because of any deficiency in the unions themselves.

The weirdness of this aspect of American society was illustrated by a comment from Lech Walesa representing Solidarity, the union that basically killed communism in Poland: he remarked that he couldn't understand how American workers could be so stupid as not to work with their companies rather than against them.

 

[Kulindahr]

if they worship money then they are godless who believe people places and things can be owned and abused. mitt romney's 47% comment was a prime example of such godless actors.

Yes. I have to agree with my native ancestors that places cannot be owned, that the earth belong to all. The intrusion of the ungodly notion that the earth is a thing to be used as men will was a disaster for mankind, however much the notions of individual liberty that came along was the greatest leap of political progress ever.

And to pre-empt ben's predictable slush about free markets, there have been societies which have demonstrated that free markets can work quite well without the western rape-the-land concept of places as property. Indeed, Henry George showed that understanding that if the earth can be property at all then it is the property of all would make a very strong foundation for free market capitalism (and that in a way which shuts down any inroads of communism, to boot).

 

[frankfrank]

There are exceptions. They make good investments.

AT & T was one until the government busted it up. Now phone companies are just electronic robbers.

The robbery has only shape-shifted, that's all.

Under the old Bell Telephone > A T & T before breakup, you were robbed by the universal REQUIREMENT that you were forced to rent your telephone from them (at what was an exorbitant rate at the time, I think it was like $8 a month or something). Also, long distance calls were incredibly expensive. Monthly costs of the landline connection were very cheap.

Some localities had "General Telephone" and some places had local phone companies which almost always provided crummy and unreliable service. Some of these local companies still exist (even in the county I'm living in), and they've generally caught up with the big boys for quality of service, etc.

AT&T, General Telephone, or whatever local company you had, were all almost always absolute monopolies, with carved-out, demarcated territories.

Now, the landline connection is very expensive...BUT long distance is incredibly cheap***, and a landline phone (if you can find one) can be bought for probably the price of a couple months of rental. I actually think that "the phone company" still had the rental option, which was used by almost nobody, into the beginning of this Century.

***Long Distance is rarely "bought" from the same company that provides the connection anymore, nowadays.

I'm excluding all comparisons to cell phones and such above, because it keeps the comparison "straight" instead of "comparing (certain branded computers) to oranges."

However, it also should be noted that those who have data plans on smart phones nowadays, Long Distance is almost an afterthought and is, for all intents and purposes, free.

 

[thermodynamics]

I'd like to tell you about my experience...

I have been the beneficiary of the transfer of wealth from one generation to another--chiefly from my grandparents to me, about $150k over the last 20 years. My grandfather strongly believes in giving his wealth away before he dies. I strongly agree with this idea. My mother (who is a Lutheran pastor) has seen many families with significant wealth fight over an estate, especially when the deceased's intenntions aren't clear. We need to encourage people to give away their wealth before they die.

Each year for the past 20, I received around $10k in appreciated stock from my grandfather. That built up in a sizable portfolio over those years. I'm 31 now. That money paid for college, grad school, some seed money for my small business, and the down payment for a house. There is still some left, and i use that money to contribute to my RothIRA each year.

I think I'm the poster boy for how to do this right. I've worked hard, and my business is successful, profitable, and growing.

To quote my grandfather, "I want to give you enough money so that you can do anything you want to do, but not so much that you can do nothing."

Sadly, he probably won't be with us too much longer. And his estate is going to be quite messy (this is the one area in his life where he hasn't planned ahead). Cue the family squabbles...

 

[Kulindahr]

I'd like to tell you about my experience...

I have been the beneficiary of the transfer of wealth from one generation to another--chiefly from my grandparents to me, about $150k over the last 20 years. My grandfather strongly believes in giving his wealth away before he dies. I strongly agree with this idea. My mother (who is a Lutheran pastor) has seen many families with significant wealth fight over an estate, especially when the deceased's intenntions aren't clear. We need to encourage people to give away their wealth before they die.

Each year for the past 20, I received around $10k in appreciated stock from my grandfather. That built up in a sizable portfolio over those years. I'm 31 now. That money paid for college, grad school, some seed money for my small business, and the down payment for a house. There is still some left, and i use that money to contribute to my RothIRA each year.

I think I'm the poster boy for how to do this right. I've worked hard, and my business is successful, profitable, and growing.

To quote my grandfather, "I want to give you enough money so that you can do anything you want to do, but not so much that you can do nothing."

Sadly, he probably won't be with us too much longer. And his estate is going to be quite messy (this is the one area in his life where he hasn't planned ahead). Cue the family squabbles...

I once witnessed from bit of a distance a quick end to a "messy" estate. There was a clause in it that was to be kept secret from everyone except the executor, who was a Lutheran pastor who also had a law degree. Once the will was read, arguments began. After two weeks, the pastor called everyone together again, and at the meeting notified them all that none who had argued about what they were getting would be getting anything -- that was the secret clause. Their shares were then divided between those who had remained quiet and the church "Widow's Fund". It was a nice lesson, I thought.

 

[Cobyforrester]

Sartre War Diaries has a brief discussion of the bourgeoisie and his relation to it. He doesn't feel like he lacks due to proletarian identity. Which is weird given what I recall of his biographical details.