[jongjong]

>Inherited wealth is the least earned

Let's be real. No wealth is 'earned'. It's almost entirely luck and social connections. No different from inheritance.

Besides, inheritance can be hard work, psychologically. Your parents may be in a very different socioeconomic group than you for most of your adult life. Your baseline expectation for a 'normal' lifestyle is somewhat elevated (due to the lifestyle you experienced in your childhood) but, for most of your adult reality, you're broke and you feel guilty knowing that your child (the only one you can afford to have) can't have the same childhood that you had.

You work like crazy just to try to earn a living to get back to 'normal' (what you experienced in your childhood) but, deep down, you know you that your best shot at getting there is inheritance in about 30 years' time when you're at death's door (because, with all the stress you experienced, you know you're not going to live as long as your parents). Your biggest worry is that your government will fall to communism and there will be no inheritance.

Your life was basically ruined since the start of adulthood as soon as you were confronted with the ugly reality that labor of any kind is worthless and capital is everything. A reality that your parents will never have to face.

If the government wants to be perfectly consistent and tax people based on how easy it was for them to earn money, then it should impose wealth tax since the amount of wealth tells you the amount of luck and social connectedness at play... And this will also impact inheritance to some extent, but to a fairer extent.

[Retric]

People can live a long time which can turn relatively modest investments with average returns into significant wealth. 21 to 101 is 80 years and cost dollar averaging kicks in.

Sure you could call a long life and decent job luck, but a lot of people live into their 90’s.

[jongjong]

What do you call living to be 90 years old, if not very lucky? Again, luck.

[Retric]

You can do a lot to improve your odds of hitting 90 vs what actuarial tables show. Baseline may only be 15% but a very healthy lifestyle can get close to 50/50 which isn’t some major stroke of luck.

[jongjong]

I work too hard and not rich enough to live to 90. I'm quite sure of that. Unfortunately, in my reality, I need to work extremely hard just to make ends meet which isn't enough surplus to offset the health problems I'm creating for myself.

[Retric]

I’m sorry you feel that way. Personally I radically reduced living expenses to get out of that kind of situation, but I understand every situation is different.

[Thorrez]

>No wealth is 'earned'.

What about the crazy hours that doctors often work?

[jongjong]

This is probably the fairest way to earn big money but it's still not fully earned. The number of spots available in universities to become a doctor are limited based on some arbitrary rules (math and physics test-taking ability?) that have nothing to do with what skills are actually necessary to be a good doctor. There are some significant political shenanigans at play here too.

If the system was fairer and doctors experienced close to 'free market' competition, then I would agree 100%, but it's not the case.

I'm sure it's very difficult but doctors have it really good compared to other professionals who also work late and have to compete on a global marketplace with no professional protections/regulatory constraints.