Inherited wealth. Any justification?

[Two Thumbs]

Oh?

Are you saying you just want to give all that wealth back to the government? So that they can give it to people who haven't earned it?

Immie

It seems you know something good that I'd like to find out about. If the government is giving out money to people who haven't earned it, can you tell me how I can get some? Do I need any special qualifications to qualify?

Thanks.

When your family introduces you to new people. Do they tell them that you are mentally handicapable?

 

[Oddball]

Why are you so against people earning their way in our world?

Do tell, and how do you feel about welfare recipients? Are they earning their way in the world?

attacking welfare makes about as much sense as attacking foreign aid. Both of them don't amt to much as a % of the budget. They are conservative, knee-jerk issues..

Wait a minute...

Knee-jerk liberoidals run around mewling about "our crumbling infrastructure" out of one side of their mouths, yet can downplay the costs of foreign and domestic freeloading out the other?

GAFB!

 

[mudwhistle]

I think there's good social reasons to tax truly massive estates.

If a scion cannot make it starting out with over 100 years worth of the median family's pretaxed income in their pockets (that $5 million in cash tax free) then seriously, why not?

Too much dough in the hands of too few people is not good for the economy or the society.

It's not fair, you complain?

Yeah, a lot that happens in this world isn't fair, I quite agree.

Get used to it.

Perhaps it's better that we have no rich here in America.

No more NFL owners. No more donations to universities like Harvard from wealthy allumns.

I mean, the rich never contributed to American society.

As long as the social contract is based on capitalism we need CAPTIALISTS just as we need WORKERS.

The rich are the folks who take a share of the wealth produced by the nation's workers and save it for reinvestment so that other workers will also find work to create still more wealth.

But whe the capital formation does NOT go back into investments in the nation that created that wealth to begin with?

Then the system isn't going to last very long.

And we are now beginning to feel the effects of policies that allowed the weath created by the RICH and the WORKERS of this nation migrating to foreign shores thus putting millions of Americans out of work.

If you can't see what's wrong with that picture, I'm not sure that you're somebody whose thoughts regarding our macro-economy are worthy of my consideration, kid.

I'm 54 years FYI you dip-shit.

I see what's wrong with it but I also know that a high wage scale and higher taxes caused it.

 

[Old Rocks]

TEDDY ROOSEVELT ON THE ESTATE TAX, 1910:

We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community … The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and … a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2010/12/15/teddy-estate

 

[Bern80]

Oh?

Are you saying you just want to give all that wealth back to the government? So that they can give it to people who haven't earned it?

Immie

It seems you know something good that I'd like to find out about. If the government is giving out money to people who haven't earned it, can you tell me how I can get some? Do I need any special qualifications to qualify?

Thanks.

It's not really a secret. It's called unemployment insurance.

 

[Old Rocks]

Estate tax and the founding fathers: You can't take it with you | The Economist

If there was one thing the Revolutionary generation agreed on — and those guys who dress up like them at Tea Party conventions most definitely do not — it was the incompatibility of democracy and inherited wealth.

With Thomas Jefferson taking the lead in the Virginia legislature in 1777, every Revolutionary state government abolished the laws of primogeniture and entail that had served to perpetuate the concentration of inherited property. Jefferson cited Adam Smith, the hero of free market capitalists everywhere, as the source of his conviction that (as Smith wrote, and Jefferson closely echoed in his own words), "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural." Smith said: "There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death."

The states left no doubt that in taking this step they were giving expression to a basic and widely shared philosophical belief that equality of citizenship was impossible in a nation where inequality of wealth remained the rule. North Carolina's 1784 statute explained that by keeping large estates together for succeeding generations, the old system had served "only to raise the wealth and importance of particular families and individuals, giving them an unequal and undue influence in a republic" and promoting "contention and injustice." Abolishing aristocratic forms of inheritance would by contrast "tend to promote that equality of property which is of the spirit and principle of a genuine republic."

 

[Oddball]

Just because I can't take it with me, that doesn't mean it belongs to the mob who can rob my grave first.

 

[Skull Pilot]

TEDDY ROOSEVELT ON THE ESTATE TAX, 1910:

We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community … The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and … a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

Teddy Roosevelt on the Estate Tax, 100 Years Ago | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

In other words.

We in the government are entitled to steal your property when you die.

In other words

Government will tell you how much of the fruits of your life's labor you will be allowed to keep

In other words

**** you citizen.

 

[AllieBaba]

I think there's good social reasons to tax truly massive estates.

If a scion cannot make it starting out with over 100 years worth of the median family's pretaxed income in their pockets (that $5 million in cash tax free) then seriously, why not?

Too much dough in the hands of too few people is not good for the economy or the society.

It's not fair, you complain?

Yeah, a lot that happens in this world isn't fair, I quite agree.

Get used to it.

Not fair? What's fair about double and triple taxing the same money over and over?

The US isn't a society where it's the government's job to even out the "fairness" of birth status. The government's sole job should be to protect the rights of individual citizens, and allow them to succeed, if they so desire. It isn't to make sure everybody starts out at the same level by penalizing the families that accumulate wealth.

Fair, pshaw. What's fair about the fact that some people have the genes to be track stars, and others don't? When will the government do something about THAT? Perform surgery on the babies born to athletic families to even the playing field?

Obviously, that's ridiculous. And so is penalizing anyone financially to even the playing field.

 

[AllieBaba]

Taxing for social purposes undermines freedom, incidentally.

 

[Oddball]

I think there's good social reasons to tax truly massive estates.

If a scion cannot make it starting out with over 100 years worth of the median family's pretaxed income in their pockets (that $5 million in cash tax free) then seriously, why not?

Too much dough in the hands of too few people is not good for the economy or the society.

It's not fair, you complain?

Yeah, a lot that happens in this world isn't fair, I quite agree.

Get used to it.

Taxation is about raising the revenue to fund the operations of lawful de jure government, not for the completely nebulous and arbitrary "social reasons" and/or "fairness".

Grave robbing doesn't become benevolence just because you do so under the auspices of the biggest mob you can find to rationalize it.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Social engineering is not the job of the government.

 

[MikeK]

Oh?

Are you saying you just want to give all that wealth back to the government? So that they can give it to people who haven't earned it?

Immie

It seems you know something good that I'd like to find out about. If the government is giving out money to people who haven't earned it, can you tell me how I can get some? Do I need any special qualifications?

Thanks.

Thank you for confirming the attitude of many on the left. ******* greedy little twits who want something for nothing. Get a job.

I have no need for a job. I just want some of the free money you right-wing fanatics are always talking about. Why can't I have some? Is it really available -- or are you just a bunch of drum-pounding water carriers for the corporate masters and super-rich you seem to worship?

 

[MikeK]

Oh?

Are you saying you just want to give all that wealth back to the government? So that they can give it to people who haven't earned it?

Immie

It seems you know something good that I'd like to find out about. If the government is giving out money to people who haven't earned it, can you tell me how I can get some? Do I need any special qualifications to qualify?

Thanks.

It's not really a secret. It's called unemployment insurance.

I can't get any of that money. That's insurance for people who worked for a prescribed period of time and have lost their jobs for no fault of their own, such as outsourcing. So do you have any other suggestions?

 

[California Girl]

It seems you know something good that I'd like to find out about. If the government is giving out money to people who haven't earned it, can you tell me how I can get some? Do I need any special qualifications?

Thanks.

Thank you for confirming the attitude of many on the left. ******* greedy little twits who want something for nothing. Get a job.

I have no need for a job. I just want some of the free money you right-wing fanatics are always talking about. Why can't I have some? Is it really available -- or are you just a bunch of drum-pounding water carriers for the corporate masters and super-rich you seem to worship?

I worship no man, nor do I hate anyone for having more than me. I am perfectly capable of earning my own way through life. And I do. I ask you for nothing - other than you stay the **** out of my way - and out of my pocket. What is mine, is mine. Whether I earn it or whether it is given to me by an equally hard working relative. Get your own ******* wealth.

Earn it or starve, I could give a shit which. I help those who need my help. That ain't you.

 

[Two Thumbs]

If you can't pass your money and property to your family.

What happens to it?

The Fed has no rightful claim that I know of.
The state? Why would the state want to get into the biz of buying and selling private property?
Banks? pfft, yeah, that's a great idea.
Charities? who gets to deside who gets what and who is going to make sure they are not corrupt?

Far more simple to pass it along, down the family tree.

 

[Wiseacre]

The more you give to people who haven't earned it, the more they are disincentivized to earn anything. And the more you disincentivize somebody to work hard amd make a lot of money that they can pass onto their kids, the more they'll find ways to avoid the estate tax or move it offshore.

 

[M14 Shooter]

In a merit-based society, is their any justification for wealth being passed down generationally.

Yes. Its my property, and I can give it to anyone I want.

And, if so, is there any limit to such justification?

No.

Now here's the --real-- question:
Who, other than the people I leave that property to, have any legitimate claim to that property, and what is the basis for that claim?

Just askin'.

 

[AllieBaba]

Thank you for confirming the attitude of many on the left. ******* greedy little twits who want something for nothing. Get a job.

I have no need for a job. I just want some of the free money you right-wing fanatics are always talking about. Why can't I have some? Is it really available -- or are you just a bunch of drum-pounding water carriers for the corporate masters and super-rich you seem to worship?

I worship no man, nor do I hate anyone for having more than me. I am perfectly capable of earning my own way through life. And I do. I ask you for nothing - other than you stay the **** out of my way - and out of my pocket. What is mine, is mine. Whether I earn it or whether it is given to me by an equally hard working relative. Get your own ******* wealth.

Earn it or starve, I could give a shit which. I help those who need my help. That ain't you.

And don't **** with my children. I will raise them, and you need to stay the hell away from them.

I will and do help people less fortunate than myself, and I don't need somebody else to do it in my name. I will choose how and when I help, and my help will be in accordance with my own value system and beliefs. Stay away from my value system and beliefs; I have a right to live by them.

 

[editec]

Oh?

Are you saying you just want to give all that wealth back to the government? So that they can give it to people who haven't earned it?

Immie

It seems you know something good that I'd like to find out about. If the government is giving out money to people who haven't earned it, can you tell me how I can get some? Do I need any special qualifications to qualify?

Thanks.

It's not really a secret. It's called unemployment insurance.

No Bern...the workers pay for that, too.

Yes their employers write the checks to fund the employment system, but he does so having already reduced his workers wages knowing that he'll have to chip into the unemployment funds for those workers

So basically unemployment insurance is something that the workers pay for in the form of reduced wages.

It's a very good system. Just imagine what our economy might have been like had nobody who was recently let go not had ANY money tio carry them through until they found that new job.

You think the economy is in the crapper now, imagine what it would have been if millions of American families hadn't had anything.