Lucky for me my parents were both “I didn’t save anything for retirement, my kids will take care of me when I’m older”, so I don’t have to suffer through this.
Isn’t that better anyway? Inheritance makes the world less fair, as children of rich parents will get a huge advantage. If that money is instead spent, it hopefully distributes over society again instead if staying in the rich families.
It’s obviously not that black and white, getting some money is a great help to you get people. And obviously a parent will want to help their children, that’s totally fair. But as a larger trend it doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me.
The people with millions and billions of dollars aren’t spending all of it before they die. It’s the old people with tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands.
Oh yes, all that money spent on cruise liners will definitely distribute over society
millennials may miss out
Love how that title makes it sound millennials are somehow to blame
How? “Missing out” means you’re the one who is negatively impacted. It also says and Gen Z. Not sure how that could be interpreted otherwise.
I don’t see that. To me it reads as guilt tripping the parents for wanting to spend the money they themselves earned.
Indeed, OP is a stupid take. For all the shit boomers pulled off with this planet, spending their own money is a good thing.
Yeah they should be allowed to burn everything they ever touched and take it with them when they go. Or maybe we even build giant stone triangles for them and put all their stuff in there with them.
Them getting to spend all the money scraped from the rest of the world and leaving a bleaker version behind us so justified. They put in all that effort and who cares about next generations anyways.
Common phrase of course:
“Cut down all the trees you planted in life so that nobody but you can ever sit beneath it’s shade.”I don’t think you understand what “spending money” means. It’s a good thing because one of the bigger problems in today’s world is wealth-hoarding - accumulated wealth grows and when it’s spent, it actually helps the economy, by people earning money from the services / manufactured products bought.
Unfortunately, in the USA, spending money usually means handing it over to the ultra wealth hoarders
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Yeah, one of my parents likely isn’t getting anything from theirs, but the other did, and I’m sure they’ll have it all spent. My wife’s family is the same; the generational wealth ends with her parents. We’re fucked, as a whole generation.
I know poor and wealthy people in every generation. Why aren’t we blaming the banks for the 08 crash, the politicians for taking away almost every social service and trying to take away more, and the psychopath CEOs who care about their dick measuring contests every quarter? This generational divide obscures the real issues.
No one should expect to inherit anything when their loved ones die.
The worst people are those that are too lazy to build something on their own, but sit around praying for their parents death so they can inherited and live an easy life.
Lewis Carroll has an interesting piece about that. Brings up the point that if someone works hard to benefit the community, and their wealth represents the response of the community to repay that person’s work, perhaps it’s not unreasonable that that person’s request is, “repay it to my children,” i.e. inheritance.
I still don’t get it. So, he benefits from society, then the ethical thing to do is to set up his own family not the society he benefits from?
To a wife of that time, I understand - that is someone who did unpaid labor for decades so that he could have a career. So that money, yes she helped earn it.
I dunno, something about the whole system offends me. Taking more than you need, then directing the excess to your own kids. If literally every family could do it, sure. But how it works now just attenuates inequality.
he benefits from society, then…
He gives benefit to society. That’s how he gets rich: by giving a benefit to society, and his riches represent the unpaid recompense from society back to him.
If he were living, he could, for instance, buy a restaurant meal with that money. In that way, society would pay him back by cooking him a meal at the restaurant.
Instead he leaves the money to his children, and they - for instance - buy a car. Then, society pays back the man who benefited them by providing a car to his child.
What a benevolent view of rich people. Not sure I share it. Some subset of them probably fit this mold but plenty got rich wrecking the environment, deferring and externalizing costs that ought to have been borne by the business. Not leaving a better world for others to enjoy. So they extracted wealth from society and instead of that $ going towards mitigation of those damages they pass it to their kids and leave the cleanup for the rest of us.
Where possible, its nice to leave something. It’s not nice to expect or demand it.
My aunt talked her mom out of kitchen remodel because it’s going to cost so much (that she’ll get smaller ineritance then) while my grandmom, who already spends most of her time alone at home then can’t even spend her savings to make her surroundings a bit nicer.
Ahh yes, the genereation widely know for being obnoxiously entitled, making obnoxiously entitled memes.
Which generation and memes do you refer to?
Apparently said generation is also stupid.
How dare they raise you and then spend their own money?!
I would argue that the stereotype is that most Boomer parents did not actually do much “raising.” They had kids out of some sense of obligation and then kept on focusing on themselves.
Boomers, as a cohort, are incredibly narcissistic and obstinate.
That said, I don’t particularly care about an inheritance; I want my Dad to live as long as he can and be happy and healthy.
Gen X and especially millennials are the first ones to be mostly raised by two working parents. We’ve been fucked since we left the womb.
Boomers: Stay at home moms were the norm.
Before that, huge families and “it takes a village”
Nowadays, it takes three jobs to be able to afford daycare.
I was sitting in the room while my friend’s dad was having a argument with his horrible dad. The horrible dad threatened to write him out of his will, and my friend’s dad respond, “Why do you think I’d want 1/6th of fuck all anyway?”
I wouldn’t be so blunt with my mother about things, but every time she talks about inheritance I encourage her to just spend the money on herself. Anything will be spilt between 7 kids overall (3 hers, 4 my late step dad). She is holding on to an expensive ring because my very well off, money hungry sister, has basically demanded it, so I’m working behind the scenes to try get her to sell it so she can invest in making her last few years that much easier.
Damn, I wish my parents had an inheritance to waste.
I don’t think what’s talked about enough is kids having the talk with their parents about not being able to take care of them when they get old because you can’t afford to take of yourself and didn’t save anything for retirement. So you hope SSN will be enough for them. I know my mother always asked me if I would take care of her when she got old.
She would say that’s why she had kids. But I had to sit her down and run the math and I said it’s not about if I have the will or not it’s is it possible and the math just doesn’t workout and I have an okay job. I can only imagine what people lower down on the ladder are going through.
There are a lot of boomers that about to get a horrible wake up call and a lot of heartbreak watching our parents suffer at hands of their own making.
They will be drowning and some kids are going to jump in and get pulled under when trying to rescue them and the ones who know they don’t have to proper equipment. Stay out of the water and mourn the loss.
I’m sure there is more to it but telling you she had kids so you can take care of her sounds pretty bad - even though I know it’s not uncommon.
I have had to have this talk with my parents as well since I moved to a different country at 19. I’ve told them to prepare for me not to be able to be around all the time, and luckily they have done that. It still feels selfish after so many years and they have been great about it, so I can understand this conversation being extremely difficult when the parents expect to be taken care of.
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Let me tell you, as someone with potentially a bit of wealth to give out when I kick the bucket, every week with my kids I get this idea at least once. In some ways, it’s the last bit of power we have until becoming of unsound mind. I’m hoping they’ll grow out of making me feel that.
“Fuck you, I got mine.”
-Boomers
The attitude you describe is, I believe, the result of capitalist and religious propaganda that reinforces individualism rather than collectivist and non-religious yet spiritual philosophies. Those like Hinduism, Confucianism, Zen and Toaism.
Not to sell any one in particular but the common thread in the East is a different perspective than a boss in the sky eternally judging each individual.
Even if you aren’t religious, advertising will tell you you’re a special, unique and seperate individual. Desiring to stand out as famous, beautiful, smart, funny, strong etc is just a trap but one desired by many. Unfortunately, to be above others, then others must be below you. To be rich, there must be poor.
An understanding of this force of balance shows that to minimise the extremes of poverty you must minimise the extremes of wealth.
The East sees our true self is the larger whole of which we as Humanity are a small part of. While your name may seperate you conceptually, none of us are separate from the air we breath or the stars we see. Nothing is seperate even though the mind feels and believes it is so. Are you really in control? Do you beat your heart? When you make a decision, do you first decide to decide?
I only say all this because, when one genuinely switches thinking this way, then naturally you want to be generous and caring towards all others because you see everything as yourself includeing all that is non human.
These philosophies are not the complete answer to our problems because many of these philosophies were born in China and, even though it’s embedded in their culture, they are still struggling like everyone else. But a more modern widespread common understanding of the true nature of the situation may be beneficial.
My grandparents from one side of the family left me nothing, and the other side left two weeks rent. I know the direct descendants come first but at least give the grandkids 15% or something, it would have helped so much. We’re all working twice as hard to afford half the lifestyle our parents had
