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higher probability they will be communist
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higher probability they’ll be lazy morons
Just my take
agree. being given an unearned life really destroys what makes us human - hence the predilection towards communism.
but all children born into wealth are not this way. i work with many entrepreneurial firms where the 2nd generation is now running the show. the successful ones are just as hungry as their parents and tend work even harder to prove their worth. those situations are a credit to the parents.
As BSDs i’m sure many of us will face this dilemma. do your kids a favor and make them earn it.
Yeah, I agree there are many counter examples… on the whole though.
The trustfund I set up is going to have triggers like “goes to ivey league school, release $100k” ; “graduates undergrad with 4.0, release $250k” , “gets into skull and bones, release $400k”, “smashes hottest chick in school, release private island”
If someone does not work because they already have a ton of money, that does not necessarily mean that they are a lazy moron. If you handed me $50 million now, I would quit my job almost immediately. With or without the $50 million, I would be the same person. Different circumstances just result in different rational responses. We could discuss how wise it would be to give your kids the money to begin with, but don’t blame the kids for not working if they are put in that situation.
Of course, a lot of this trust fund stuff is probably set up for tax reasons.
It’s true that not working doesnt automatically = lazy
but, 8 out of 10 times it does… a trustfund kid who never built a career and an older gentleman “out of work” between consulting jobs or working on boards are two different types of “out of work”.
Giving you $50M now, and giving you $50M when you’re a kid, are too different things.
Also, who do we blame for being lazy if not the kid?
I didn’t mean this as a universal statement, but I think 7/10 times it will pervert the kid’s incentives for the worse. I have a friend who didn’t get his trust/know about his trust until about a year before he got it (released when he turned 26), the second he found out he quit his job and moved to thailand. His trust fund wasn’t the type you retire for life on (500K
The above just made me think about how I should probably be careful when it comes time to set up the trust fund… and I wanted to see other’s take on it
LMAO. Surely you more pressing things to think/worry about than this…
For a country that is so bent on individual freedom/success/failure, it really amazes me how much Americans are into to trust funds and legacies. I find these are far less normal in Europe or in Canada, perhaps due to higher taxes, but none the less. There is some kind of American belief that they should pass on sums of cash to their kids. I don’t get this mentality at all.
The most I can imagine giving to my kid is a car and paying for some school.
As someone that paid my way through everything in life from age 14 by busting it, I don’t really have much interest in giving my kids an easy ticket.
I don’t have any kids yet, but when I do, I’d like to raise them with a decidedly middle class lifestyle. Of course, they will get the benefits of being enrolled in good schools, sports teams, and other interesting extracurriculars that will enable them to sample a variety of things in life so that they can figure out what they’re passionate about. However, they don’t get access to a “trust fund” until much later in life, if ever – they’ll have to learn on their own that if they want something in life, they have to earn it.
This is one of the beautiful things about the United States: it is a country where if you are provided with the right opportunities, there is usually a very strong correlation between how hard you work and how good the results are.
If you’re just handed money, you’re a lot less likely to freely give it up (taxes).
Source: I had a trust fund and so do many of my friends. All are very fiscally conservative. None of them are what I’d call lazy, though one of them (I wrote about going to his bachelor party on here previously) doesn’t really work so much as travel the globe and party.
Yeah. In the country where legacies should matter the least, they are the most emphasized. Interesting.
+1
My wife and I have extremely different views on this. She thinks that when we die, we should leave all our money to our kids. I say that if we get them a car, pay for their school, and help them buy their first house, then our job is done. That’s a whole lot more than I got from my parents.
Hopefully, they’ll be at least 30 (maybe 40) when I die. If they haven’t figured out how to make their own success by then, then no amount of money will help them. And if they are successful, then they won’t need my money, and I can give that to a more “worthy” cause.
This is, of course, assuming that I have enough money when I die to make a difference in anybody’s life.
Your a trust fund kid? Never would’ve seen that coming.
It’s even worse among the kids of the rich in China…
My impression is that US people value inheritance less, not more than people in most countries. In many countries, people regard wealth as family property, not individual property, and it is common for multiple generations of the same family to live in the same house - unlike in the US, where we enforce generational barriers and send mom to an old folks home, rather than haver her move in with us.
If I end up leaving behind a significant inheritance, I would like that money to go to my family and descendants. Hopefully, I will have taught my heirs to use the money responsibly, rather than squander it on meaningless things. Similarly, if I were to receive a large inheritance today, I would use only a modest portion for my personal spending. I would do my best to preserve and grow the inheritance, so as to provide security for future generations of my family.
It is obviously important to raise heirs such that they are able to provide for themselves and not rely on inheritances. Many millionaires do not discuss finances with their children - they do not want the kids to grow up knowing that they will not need to make their own money. If the kids are raised to be responsible, independent, and moral, they should deserve to receive the family inheritance to use as they see fit.
Out of curiosity, Ohai.
You mentioned you were Chinese. Are you “off-the-boat”? Or a first-generation American? Or do you think all Asian-Americans believe this, regardless of how long they’ve lived here?
It seems like Asians rarely, if ever, get “Americanized” into thinking that they’re entitled to something. (Whether that be a trust fund from your parents, a government-funded education, or welfare benefits.)
Moral question: Why are kids of rich families deserving of inheritence and kids of poor families undeserving of inheritence? Should the kid bare the burden of the financial decisions of his parents?
Surely there are poor kids that are more “responsible, independent and moral” then some rich kids, but they deserve nothing and the rich kid deserves a life of luxury due to his luck in birthing?
Not saying I have the right answer, but curious how you’d defend a comment largely along the lines of those lucky to win the birth lottery deserve great wealth while others deserve to be poor.
They do say it only takes three generations to go from rags to riches, and back to rags again.
Kid’s of poor families who were raised to be responsible, independent and moral are also deserving of inheritence, there just isn’t much to inherit. Everything is relative though. Unless you were born into a violent, disease-infested slum/ghetto/barrio and dug yourself out to be what you are today, you’re no different than some $100MM trust fund kid as far as someone born into squalor is concerned.
Note: I don’t mean you specfically, it applies to all of us here including me.
Yes, the secret to becoming an Olympic athlete is to choose your parents wisely. The same could be said of becoming rich.
I know this is an overused aphorism, but it’s true nonetheless–Life’s not fair. There are a lot of people who are rich through no merit of their own, just like there are people who are poor through no fault of their own. But trying to “correct” it would lead to a cure that’s worse than the disease, IMHO.
Well kids of poor families could be perfectly deserving, but there is just nothing for them to receive. But what’s the alternative? When a person dies, all of their assets revert back to the government just so it doesn’t all go to the kids?
I take the view similar to ohai, but I’m biased since assuming my dad doesn’t burn through all of his assets, I’ll inherit a sizable sum when the time comes (I’m not a trust fund baby, just a recipient of a deferred windfall).
I’m sure most people would be happy to receive (and probably blow through) any inheritance. I’d like to think I’ll use whatever inheritance I receive to keep the balance and just use a portion of the income to supplement my life.