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I believe in inheritance, but when it starts getting in the billions, it shouldn't be just passed down.

I don't know man after all it is their own money and not yours. Even though you seem to have a good grip on reality, they may not and no one can do anything about that.

It's not their money when they die.

And when they die they have a will that determines where their money will go. I have a right to leave my money to whomever I want. The government has no right to have a say in the matter. Even in the billions, it's their billions not the governments.

I don't care. Billions can change the world, and it should be going to charity. All that has to be done is a law to be passed.

I'm glad you think that and I agree, but it is still theirs after they die because they choose before death who it will go to. The world will never be that way, that type of wealth changes who you are. No one cares.

"See nobody cares" – Jurassic Park

Agreed

Of course you don't care it's not YOUR money! If you feel that way then go make billions and change the world with it and leave all YOUR money to charity.

Why is it that some people just want to go around and punish those of us who have worked hard and become successful?

I am not a billionare, heck, I ain't even wealthy but I say if you earned it then you should be able to do with it what ever you please!

Those who say that when a successful person passes away whatever wealth they have should be given to the government to redistribute as the government so pleases are just not in touch with the real world – What they are saying is that Capitalism is fine until you die, then Communism should take over. However, when Jared finishes college and enters the real world and becomes successful – well, what kind of incentive would it be to become successful if you cannot do with the fruits of your labor what you want? Jared my friend, that just does not make any kind of sense at all.

Just my not-so-humble opinion.

I'm glad all of you are rallying around the flag here but I'm not talking about the hardworking middle-class. Capitalism in America is failing. At one point, it was doing well, but the richest 1% controls more than 50% of our country’s wealth. That's the truth.

Capitalism has greatly improved our company but it's also destroying it. There has to be very strict rules and regulations on what these billionaires do with their money when they die. Not all of them work hard for it.

Do you want to know why Andrew Carnegie gave away most of his money when he died? One of the richest men in history by the way. He was visited by spirits who told him that if he hadn't of given away his money, it would affect him in the afterlife. If it wasn't for government regulation to begin with, there would be no rising middle class, and there would be a much larger gap between the rich and poor.

Stop thinking small.

Not all of them work hard for it? Really? Are you really serious? Do you mean to tell me that I didn't have to work so bloody hard all my life? That all I had to do was sit back and relax and – POOF! – I would have become filthy rich?

Damn!

Now you tell me, now after I am well into my sixties, that I did it all wrong all those years!

I have just one question for you . . . . .

Just what the hell have you been drinking at all those Toga parties?

Just my very not-so-humble opinion!

Papadawg, I'm not talking about the greatest entrepreneurs like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, I'm talking about the idiot sons and daughters who get the money, like Paris Hilton.

In a civil society where individuals are masters of themselves, who has the authority or right to decide where someone else's production should go? I do not have the right to dictate to my neighbor how he spends his production in life, where would I get this right when my neighbor dies? It isn't a question of the morality of being a billionaire but the morality of forcing the billionaire to do with his production what others may feel needs to be done even after his/her death.

Yea, but when you have those people which control the entire money supply, it affects all of us. Look at Carnegie, who was worth 600 billion dollars in today's money. That's a big impact on the economy, and we cannot have it just sit there.

Point of topic: This debate is concerning the strictness of inheritance laws. Debating capitalism and it's faults is off topic.

Carnegie didn't just have it sit there. Ever hear of Carnegie-Mellon, or the Carnegie Art Museum? Or the Carnegie Corporation (which started Sesame Street). Or the Carnegie Institute for Research? Or the Carnegie libraries (all over the country and in Scotland and England as well). Carnegie Hall?

Carnegie even had a list of things for charitable giving as guidelines.
#1 on that list: "Don't spoil your heirs".
#3 Help those willing to help themselves…

He wasn't worth 600 billion. His personal fortune was around a billion in 1900 dollars. We haven't had that much inflation. Even Austrian economists would say so. US Steel might have been worth that much, but his share of that wasn't. And he ended up giving away to charities and foundations and universities over 4 billion dollars in today's dollars. His money wasn't just sitting there.

The difference between him and what you're describing as a necessity: he choose freely to benefit society and others with his enormous wealth by funding education, literacy, arts, and research. He is not alone among tycoons for doing so.

That's exactly what successful entrepreneurs should be doing, charitable stuff. That's what I'm talking about.

I apologize, he is worth $298.3 billion in 2007 dollars.

Carnegie was not the model for Scrooge. Dickens is sort of ahead of Carnegie on the time line. If true, there are lots of rich people then who must be getting visits from spirits telling them to give away their money to others. Because there are lots of religious people who happen to be rich. Carnegie gave away most of his money while he lived anyway. Not as he was on his death bed. Pittsburgh is practically named after the guy. Same with parts of NY.

The middle class, the rising middle class anyway, predates government regulation. It's one of the hallmarks of American style democracy (and the Dutch and Swiss style democracies for that matter) as studied by political philosophers and historians at the time and now. It is also one of the reasons that there isn't a flourishing democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan (there isn't a growing middle class in either place yet).

Indeed. But then, that applies to the health care debate as well. Good luck trying to extricate "evil" capitalism from that topic.

If it wasn't for government regulation there would be no monopolies and there would be much more competition in all markets. Regulations created the BIG banks and their "too big to fail" privileges.

The question is what grants me the right to decide how someone else disposes of their own production. I can not justify doing something wrong by pointing to what the person I am wronging did wrong. My justification must stand alone by itself. Dollar amounts are arbitrary to this debate. Taking one dollar wrongly is just a wrong as taking billions wrongly.

I suggest you all check out this page about the Rockefeller family:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_family

"Independent researchers have valued the assets of the Rockefeller family much higher, some approaching amounts as high as $110 billion."

This is absolutely ridiculous. We can't have these heirs like this. That must should be taxed heavily, but the politicians will see otherwise. We really do need a change in our government.

the trouble is you are already commenting not on the morality of that person having that money, but on what should be done with that wealth. Wealth is a great power and if you had laws which changed with whom that power lay, for example giving it all to charities, would that guarantee that the money would be better spent? there have been corrupt or ignorant practices by charities in the past and there could be ones in the future. There is stability in the current system and a lot of time and effort would have to go in curtailing the powers of the new groups would receive those billions.

but monopolies potentially can contribute greater innovation and efficiency than a market of many small businesses. creative destruction and contestability means these markets can still be competetive. was the weakness in the size of the banks or the lack of dialogue between regulators?
Unfortunately however this does not really apply to individuals as their private wealth is unlikely to be risked on enterprise. There is very little contestability among the ranks of the super-rich! In the U.K. some of the wealthiest people are the large landowners among the aristocracy.

Monopolies are almost always examples of market inefficiencies. There are very few industries for which the scale effects are granted only by having one or a few very large businesses in it. Banking is not one of them. Large banks received money and support from government rather than being destroyed by market forces as they could or should have been.

As a result, the tricky problem of monopoly is how they are often granted and maintained by government intervention and regulation rather than destroyed by market forces or competition.

I am not an expert in economics even less on banks but I don't believe that you could have banking on a global scale without some very large organisations. A centralised system I would have thought makes it easier for borrowers and lenders to come together and brings stability, and therefore confidence, and therefore greater economic activity.
This would have been sacrificed in any of the banks had been allowed to fail.

You may have very large organisations, but it is not required. There is no proven benefit beyond an asset valuation of 100 billion, a figure which is well below the very largest banks (usually with valuations over several trillion dollars). This was the argument behind the repeal of Glass-Steagall, that we required very large banks to compete. This is incorrect (though I had no problem repealing G-S simply because it was unnecessary regulation). The existence of large international banks was often due to direct government intervention coming from central national banks, and less due to the competitive open market value they provided.

Sacrificing the banks which were insolvent does nothing meaningful in a world where we have deposit insurance. Letting them live and not punishing the market failures that they undertook privately is a far worse moral hazard than letting them fail and their remaining valuable assets to be distributed amongst the rest of the banking world.