Who's, like, inherited a lot of money that has gone on to do things in our lives?
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't like inherited wealth.
Inherited wealth, that is not what America is based upon.
I came from a wealthy family. I made over my share of the estate to various charities.
People who have the drive to achieve spend most of their time on what brings them the most tangible, immediate sense of success. Investments in our family only pay off in the very long term.
They made it to the middle class, my dad working as a bartender and my mother as a cashier and a maid. I didn't inherit any money from them. But I inherited something far better - the real opportunity to accomplish my dreams.
Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network.
Fortunes are made, and disappear, over the lifetime of a single generation. Today, a person in essence takes his wealth from society just for the duration of his or her lifetime. The next generation has to create it anew.
I grew up middle class. My father was a public functionary who didn't leave an inheritance, just debts.
All but a very few of us are in debt. We exist as entities who borrow money and spend the rest of our lives making interest payments on a debt tally that never seems to budge. Whatever wealth we have, in labor, property or cash, is suctioned to the top.
I have enough money for the rest of my life and enough to leave a good inheritance for our kids.