Don't count on the ultra-privileged for anything

There's still a lot of propaganda out there regarding the ultra-wealthy. Everyone should know better.

Billionaires have been minted at a dizzying pace in the last few decades — in 1987 Forbes counted 140, while in 2023 the tally was 2,640 — and we’ve now returned to the point in the cycle where enormous piles of wealth are passed on to the next generation. “This is how wealth dynasties are formed,” says Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the left-leaning think tank Institute for Policy Studies. The only thing that’s new in 2024 is that the piles of money are bigger than ever.

Not only are there more billionaires today, their average wealth keeps ticking up too, thanks to historic stock market returns. On top of that, heirs are receiving wealth transfers earlier in life, rather than waiting for the death or near death of a family member. All this underscores the truth that having money remains the best way to get more money. Perhaps there’s nowhere that’s truer than in the US, home to the most billionaires, despite the pervasive myth of hardscrabble, self-made entrepreneurs climbing to the top of the socioeconomic ladder. If you’re born poor, you’re likely to stay poor; if you’re born super rich, you’ll probably get even richer...

Don’t hold your breath for an onslaught of billionaire heirs suddenly giving their inheritances away for the betterment of society. One insight from the UBS report is that heirs tend to be much less interested in philanthropy than first-gen billionaires. A theory as to why, according to Collins, is that “the first generation has some confidence in their ability to create wealth,” while the second generation doesn’t. “We know that the second generation, third generation are more concerned about protecting wealth than creating it,” he continues. “They invest a lot in wealth defense; they invest a lot in lobbying.” That means opposing any wealth tax or income tax hikes on the rich, or fighting regulations that would close loopholes that have long allowed billionaires to minimize what they owe to the government. It’s a sign that “the tax system on wealth has become more optional,” says Collins. - Vox