Evolving Aristocracy
While commenting on the appointment of a Wall Streeter as Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Reich observed “Bill Gates alone owns more assets than the bottom fifty percent of Americans put together.”
With the abolition of the aristocracy tax (a.k.a. the estate tax, a.k.a. the death tax), generations of the Gates family could live in slendor without demonstrating that they add any value sufficient to deserve their wealth. (Consider Paris Hilton.)
However, I have to give the Gates family credit. My understanding is that Bill Gates plans to structure his estate so that only 10% of his wealth passes on to his heirs. Also, his father opposed the abolition of the aristocracy tax because he feared that it would create an aristocracy in America as risk-averse and valueless as the aristocracy in the EU.
Unlike the Bush family, the Gates family seems to care more about America than their heirs.
