Marble Falls        Sure, most of us have a pretty good idea what “generational wealth” is when we hear the term bandied about or read it somewhere, but, honestly, how often do we give it a second thought, or fully get our arms around how pernicious – and permanent – it is?  Not often, I would wager, but when we think about the wealth transfer happening right now because of the Trump tax and budget policy, we’re really talking about the creation of a lasting special class based on nothing more than wealth.

I was struck by this reading about Jeff Bezos’ father by adoption, Miguel Bezos from Chile.  He and Jeff’s mother, who recently passed away, grubstaked Jeff when he started Amazon.  We all know that Jeff Bezos himself is fabulously wealthy, given the success of Amazon, and one of the richest people in the world.  As much as I’m not his fan, I’m not going to knock him for having created a business juggernaut, which I grudgingly support with my Prime membership, my Kindle, Alexa, and Audible.  At the same time, it’s easy to ignore how much money grows on that tree, as the Wall Street Journal article pointed out.  His parents put up a $100,000 or so, because, as he explained, they could.  He was working overseas for Exxon, a typical middle-class manager, but since they were paying his living expenses, the senior Bezos was banking his salary.  Now, in a move most of us only see for the superrich, he was hiring someone to run his family office for the Bezos Family Foundation.  Why?  Well, that first check has now made him worth $45 billion, so in fact he’s superrich as well.  Jeff’s brother put in $10,000, so it may seem piddling in comparison, but he’s now worth over $1 billion, and wants to have the family office invest for him, too.

You have to be kidding me?  All of these Bezos adjacent folks will be rich beyond their dreams and most people for generations, possibly forever, just like Bezos is, and his ex-wife is, and his children, and God knows how many others.  Same for early Facebook people, Microsoft people, Google people, Walmart people, and the list goes on and on.  There’s a reason some economists used to talk about the “random walk” to wealth.

Think of it this way.  John D. Rockefeller, once the richest man in the United States, died in 1937.  There is only one billionaire of the more than 1000 in the country now who is a Rockefeller.  But, still after almost 90 years or roughly three generations, there’s still one, isn’t there? That doesn’t count all of the scores – many hundreds — of Rockefeller kinfolk who are still filthy rich and living in tall cotton, but just don’t happen to be in the billionaire stratosphere.

It’s hard, not impossible, but hard, to say that we should begrudge someone who worked for their money and hit their riches in the economic casino.  That doesn’t mean we have to cantilever the entire US budget and tax code to give them a hand from what they earned to fabulous wealth, does it?  The same goes for their families, friends, early employees, and others who happened to be around at the time and keep on collecting for one hundred years or more.

In France, there is now talk of a 2% wealth tax.  Some US cities and states have batted that around as well.  The more we think of generational wealth, and read these stories about the billionaires and their clans, the more that makes sense, doesn’t it?  They will all still be richer than Croesus, and the rest of our people won’t be so poor.