You know what I find crazy... how come we don't all receive houses as soon as we're born? All the houses/property that our great-great-great grandparents paid off, the houses that our great-grandparents paid off, the houses that our grandparent paid off.... I know things being passed down tends to dilute as family trees grow and expand out... but honestly, where are all the riches of the generations that preceed us. Is it all inflation? Medical costs? I just don't get it.
It has many causes, @luegenbaron is correct. The accrued wealth of one set of my grandparents was siphoned off through medical costs. This form of transfer upwards is very common. But that is just one of many ways the wealth gets transferred upwards.
Sometimes family members simply are to self involved to see the value in the items built up over time. I have bought at many auctions where prized memories and heirlooms were sold for a fraction of their value, along with items you can't attach a monetary value to such as diaries and pictures and such.
The last auction I attended was a storage unit 10x20 filled with items that had sat in it for 20 years. The wife had died through illness, the costs forcing their house of many years to be foreclosed. The man had packed up much of what was in it, including childhood toys of their son and his wifes diary and so much more. I estimate he paid 30k-40k in storage fees so his son could have it. The son was always a problem for them based on letters and court papers that were in it. I obtained the unit for a little over 700.00. The man had died and his son made no effort to reclaim the unit. he simply didn't care. Not that he would have been rich from it, but in this example his father would have been better off letting it all go and spent that 30-40k elsewhere as he had no one who cared enough to treasure it.
Lots of variables, but the system is designed to keep the velocity flowing upwards in the pyramid. Permits, taxes, usage fees, consultations. And of course, inflation. The families of the last 30 years will have it rougher as the pyramid masters have encouraged single parent households which are proven to earn less (with higher rates of poverty). These households will be more likely to have an exhausted parent from working hard (or low education living on small subsidies) who will have no time to counter any of the forced pyramid propaganda.
Thank you @practicalthought, that's very helpful.
It still does seem crazy... if each generation spends 45 years accruing wealth it's hard to imagine it all disappears into family tree branching out, health-costs and inflation... but I guess maybe it does. It kind of adds a futility to it all.
Hopefully blockchain and DAO is where the pyramid starts to peter out and flatten...
It went upwards not downwards
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But how though? Tax?
Pyramide schemes..
Tax is one tool. One of many
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