Comments on Her Every Cent Counts - a quarter life crisis, and change: Question of the Day: Can Wealth Be Fair? - from Br...

Thanks for the insightful analysis of my post! I ...

2008-01-22T18:10:55.947-08:00

Thanks for the insightful analysis of my post! I guess the best summary I can make is that the definition of 'fair' is so subjective that it's almost impossible to make. I understand your point about giving everyone an equal start - yet at the same time I'd like to give my kids a head start. I don't want rich kids - but I want my kids to start out richer than I did. It's such a tough distinction to make that it's almost impossible to make.

The one that I really struggle with is the health care for terminally ill kids. You would have had to see this girl. She had cystic fibrosis. She was lovely - so cute, so smart, so nice. She was one of my students when I was teaching and I thought she was amazing. She would disappear once every 2-3 days for a trip to the emergency room. I am sure she cost the insurance company, her parents and the taxpayer huge amounts - yet at the same time she was such a wonderful person, so cheerful and fun and popular with the other kids that I couldn't imagine saying she was costing society too much. But let's be brutal - she was. The money spent on her could have provided health care to 100s or 1000s of more-or-less healthy people instead.

I really don't know the answer, honestly. But thanks very much for your further thoughts on the subject!

Miss Noodle: "Why save? Why invest?" I think you s...

2008-01-22T17:42:31.305-08:00

Miss Noodle: "Why save? Why invest?" I think you should save and invest so that you can have a better life. You can give you children presents, of course, but at the very root of the problem of wealth unfairness is that people are born into wealth or poverty. Maybe I'm taking it way too far by saying parents shouldn't be allowed to give their children money, but it just seems to be the only way to avoid such unfairness. Moreso, I'm a big advocate on making sure all public schools are filled with quality, well-paid teachers so regardless of family wealth, a child has all the opportunity in the world to improve their live for the better.

Ultimately, though, I am fond of the idea of seeing everyone in America as my family. We might be one giant dysfunctional family that can never agree on anything, but getting beyond our natural instincts to protect our blood relatives, after that comes our country, and the people in it.

This crosses over very quickly into communism, which I don't entirely agree with (because it makes progress impossible), but I do think that people need to start seeing all of the children in America as their children. That's when our country will start changing for the better.

"That's why I think the role of the government sho...

2008-01-22T17:26:19.436-08:00

"That's why I think the role of the government should be to keep wealth in check. To give opportunity to people who are born in poverty and even middle class families. If I had my way, I'd make it illegal for parents to give their children money, and instead they'd put that money into a giant pot that would be divided up evenly amongst all the children in the country."

I'm sorry, but I totally disagree with you here. This totally undermines property rights. Wealth inequality is unfair, there's no question about it.

But to me it's even more unfair to completely abscond with a dying American's right to do with their money how they see fit. If all inheritance is appropriated by government, why even work? Why save? Why invest? It totally guts the premise of the American dream, working such that your children can have a better lot in life than the parents.

Obviously, nobody likes wants entitled, spoiled children. But a draconian, far-reaching law that essentially does away with property rights would create far more problems than it would solve.