Mildly Infuriating

Inheritance is a stepping stone to get out of poverty over generations. If the next generation can build upon it.

It comes from a time where your whole family lived in the same house and the kids eventually take care of their parents. In todays system where people usually dont live with their parents for very long, it doesnt really make sense anymore. People need money long before they get to the age where their parents die. Getting a bunch of money at 30, to establish a life/family, is much more useful and long term impactful than getting it at 50-60. So inheritance is a flawed idea from the start.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to pass the product of your entire life to your offspring, surely. We can't be so atomised. Where do you think it should go? Inheriting an empire is one thing, but why shouldn't you be able to give your own house to your child? I say this as somebody disowned by their father.

Exactly my thoughts too. Life’s meant to be lived. Hoarding assets to save for an uncertain future is counterproductive even in terms of economy at large, if one’s inclined to think that way.

It creates expectations that don’t seem natural, and then leads to disappointments and bitterness when life does not go as planned, as it never will.

But then again, I get wanting to make things better for your children. But at least for me, it seems less prone to pure chance and circumstance if the efforts went into building a more sustainable, inclusive and supportive country to live in. And enjoy the ride while it lasts, since your pain and suffering will reflect on your children, want it or not. If things are tight and you get stressed from that, it’s always going to affect everyone around you, often negatively. If, instead, you could relieve that stress by not saving more than you need as a buffer here and now, or for something like a house (I.e not for some abstract future that might never come, for your children who might not live that far, but are here now, with you), that’s probably going to be much better for everyone. Smiles generate smiles and it’s not a zero-sum game. Life well lived is one with smiles, not one with fragile, ephemeral value of some sort stored away with sweat and blood.

But of course if there’s already too much to use realistically, why not do that then. But that’s an entirely different discussion altogether, if we ever should have something like that.

Edit: there’s a distinction I failed to emphasis enough, between a realistic and very worthwhile buffer of saved value for unexpected situations, which everyone should of course have, and saving for no reason at all, other than just having excess that isn’t needed for anything, to maybe if one’s very lucky pass on down the line.

Saving assets and value isn’t bad. But saving it for no practical reason other than inheritance, takes that value out of circulation and makes everyone in your economy worse off. If that’s important to you. But more importantly, it often means a life less well lived, and often one full of stress, tiredness and one with less time actually spend with your family and close ones in general. Which is enormously more negative in impact than any amount of money in excess, or lack thereof, could ever have when you finally die.

This apparently is a hard pill to swallow for some. They can't wrap there head around having to work hard to eventually relax and enjoy life.