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 Originally Posted by wufwugy
I agree that eventually generational wealth will become a thing of the past. It mostly has already. After 3 or 4 generations, nearly all generational wealth has disappeared. Anecdote: my family was possibly the wealthiest in all of Washington about 100 years ago, but my grandparents' generation wasted literally all of it. Such loss of generational wealth is extremely common once the generation that didn't earn it has it.
The main drawback to inheritance tax I know of is how it incentivizes consumption (profligately).
Generally we'd want things that incentivize greater savings and investment. We discuss welfare and social programs ultimately because people don't save; instead they spend (profligately). Taxes on savings come in all sorts of types, and they can be thought of as penalizing good behavior to reward bad behavior.
Good points. It's really hard to know how things would shake out with something as drastic as UBI, similar to how it's hard to know exactly how the shockwaves from Covid shutdown will ripple through the economy. I think what we do know is that if we don't do something, if we just keep on with business as usual, shit ain't gonna be peachy.
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