The perils of inheritance

Be careful what you wish for.

Nothing poisons family unity more than the hope for unearned wealth. Whether one waits for an inheritance or hopes to win the lottery, the desire for an unearned windfall rots the character.

Has any family been brought closer together by a potential inheritance? No, nest eggs poison family relationships.

It is a cold fact: if you look forward to an inheritance, you are wishing somebody dead.

In fact, the only decent response to being told of a future inheritance is to tell the benefactor that they should spend every dime because you want none of it.

Discovering a potential inheritance might seem like everybody’s dream. In fact, nothing is more likely to corrode one’s closest relationships than the knowledge that cash is on its way once the benefactor dies.

As for those who have money to bequeath, if they publicize their nest egg in hopes their heirs will treat them well, they will reap only insincerity in return — and they will deserve every bit of it.

The only way to leave money is to keep it a secret until the will is read. Otherwise, the beneficiaries will either fight over how much they should get, become lazy because they know it is on its way, or try to control their elderly parents’ spending habits for selfish gain.

If you help make decisions about Grandma’s long-term care with one eye on preserving her savings for yourself when she finally croaks, you are evil. That’s what nest eggs are for: to ease the old age of the person who saved the money.

Some potential heirs convince themselves they actually deserve an inheritance due to childhood hardships, or some other imagined injustice.

They are always wrong. No matter what they suffered, they are not adults until they have gotten over the past and have stopped thinking they deserve a free lunch.

Nobody deserves an inheritance. If parents want to gamble away their millions at the blackjack table at $500 per hand, that is their privilege.

In fact, it may be their duty.

To the extent that people wait around for free money, they are useless to society, as helpless as a child waiting to be fed.

Awareness of a potential inheritance, even a small one, can take away people’s edge and rob them of the motivation to make it on their own.

It is ugly to watch children fight over things, money and property that was never theirs in the first place.

Out of some misplaced sense of principle, some are willing to instigate court cases which cost more than kitty of money they are fighting over!

Many of the Founding Fathers, particularly Thomas Jefferson, considered large inheritances to be dangerous. To Jefferson, inherited money was as undemocratic as inherited titles: it threatened to set up a perpetual aristocracy of wealth which would distribute power to those who did nothing to earn it.

Investor Warren Buffet is so convinced of the evils of inherited money that he advocates a 100% tax on inherited cash, and he has billions. In the absence of such a tax, Buffett plans to leave all of his money to charity.

We cherish an unearned windfall, but who amongst us can handle it?

Lottery winners often find that not only are they less happy in the years following their windfall, but they lose friends — and often their mental health.

The same holds for suddenly-rich ball players, musicians, and movie stars, who so often drift into addiction and dissipation — and sometimes bankruptcy court.

Although most of us are dimly aware of the destructive effects of free money, most of us still dream of it, lust for it, or waste our time waiting for it.

But it is likely that the only decent attitude towards free money is to run from it wherever it rears its ugly head.