Tree
1d ago
You're setting yourself up for failure when you start these conversations by talking about whether dead people have any right to their assets at all.
I'm not doing PR, you know. I often phrase my opinions in a deliberately provocative manner to poke the bear, encourage discussion and the questioning of assumptions. "We're living in a necrocracy, sheeple!".
Any contract I make that involves paying for a funeral is void upon my death--the company can just run off with my money.
Let's say you organized your funeral where there'd be a bonfire of priceless works of art, destroying hundreds of brand-new washing machines , slaughtering and burning 10,000 heads of cattle. I do find that a bit perverse.
Likewise, sometimes your organs can save another human - it should not be allowed to be buried with such treasures.
Any contract I make that involves paying for a funeral is void upon my death--the company can just run off with my money.
You would not make such a contract obviously. If your family and friends care about you, I'm sure they will organize something.
Tree
1d ago
Sure, that's a problem I acknowledge. I'd have to tax live gifts to children, though the argument there is weaker than in the inheritance case.
But the state taxes you whatever you do: working, buying, owning a house, making capital gains etc (a lot of it is economically productive, and in theory entirely yours), so I never understand the 'double dipping' complaints, or how people get offended when a new tax is proposed: "But it's my money, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, and I want my kids to get it"
"Okay, but it was also your money when they took part of your salary, then when you bought something with it, and when your investments paid off, and the public media tax, and the car licence tax and so on.... it's not double dipping, it's infinite dipping, you're on a merry-go-round of taxes, so what's one more at this point?" .
And no matter what guys like @The_Nybbler think, not all discussion of taxes is some dishonest ploy by his blue enemies to raise taxes. I would like overall taxes and spending to be slashed, starting with the pensions and welfare. We should be able to discuss which taxes are better (obviously inheritance, wealth, property, tobacco, congestion, consumption, and speeding tickets) without the bad faith accusations.
Tree
1d ago
The transfer of the dead man's equity in the house that he originally got in exchange for his payments.
Tree
1d ago
That's fine. Although if we decide to go that way, I think this ownership transfer should be taxed also.
Tree
1d ago
The mortgaged house did not fully belong to the dead man when he was alive to begin with. Since he could not dispose of the mortgaged house as he pleased in life, he can't in death either.
The contract did not extend past the death, it ended: It said, paraphrasing: 'X will pay for 30 years and then gets the house. If X stops paying because of deadness for example, the house is sold and the proceeds shared according to the following formula:... , etc." .
could a living man make a contract with his children and have that take precedence over the state when he dies?
No. I can't make a contract with you where we, for example, exchange goods, but both agree we won't pay the tax the state puts on such things.
Tree
1d ago
They have the greater claim to the estate. A dead man is like a bankrupt company: first the creditors get paid. The state gets the leftover equity.
Tree
1d ago
They get insurance that pays off if the borrower dies.
That's just not true.
An older relative of mine died, and the mortgage was instantly paid off by the insurance he and the bank had contracted with the loan, so I was going off that. But in any case, the loan is also guaranteed by the house, and so the bank will give out such mortgages to the elderly, even if, as I recommend, people have no power after death.
What's the alternative? Confiscate the money from the NGO because the donor died soon after donating? Require that all organizations only make year-long plans, because nobody has the right to plan further in advance than that?
I don't know where you're getting this from. The NGO should be taxed normally, they don't have to give back anything, what's done is done. When the man dies however, his assets should be heavily taxed before it reaches any NGO or heirs.
And in reality, there are innumerable ways to do things that echo for generations after your death.
An echo is not equal to the original sound. The dead are not equal to the living. I respect your rights, partly because I'm nice, partly because you have the power to defend them. Unlike the dead. What could be more important than this distinction? And I'm not interested in being nice to inanimate objects.
If I die, the contract should remain in force, or it prevents the contract from being made in the first place, and deprives me of my current right to sign such contracts.
Semantics. I don't believe you should have such 'current rights', because they are future 'dead people's rights'.
I find it ludicrous that some dead people control giant foundations for decades when they are incapable of enforcing their will or even reacting to things. It's like worshipping a statue. Fake veal or whatever the christians call it.
If mortgage payments were actually voided, banks would never give old people mortgages in the first place.
They get insurance that pays off if the borrower dies.
Tree
1d ago
Do contracts generally become null and void when someone dies
Yes, generally, they should be voided. Dead people should not (and in practical terms, do not, because they're inanimate) have the power to coerce the living. Your mortgage payments are usually voided with your death. Your IP rights should also be voided.
Tree
1d ago
Because he’s dead, for one. A man’s right to dispose of his money as he pleases considerably diminishes with his passing. I don't consider a corpse an equal citizen.
Then, it’s more of a value thing, but I think a man should pay his own way. Not rely on handouts, be they from the state or his family. I think this is good, results in a more productive & happy society. I’m more of a minarchist than a social democrat, however even I find inherited wealth inequality unfair. Heirs give wealth a bad name. The populace would be less supportive of high taxes if that contingent was reduced to zero.
Tree
2d ago
It was not a value judgment. Those who keep predicting this upcoming 'permanent democratic party domination' are simply wrong, because of the mechanism I described. I did not say it was not a loss for the right. I understand a lot of you people are chronically depressed pessimistic, but let's keep that black-tinted perspective in focus at least.
Tree
2d ago
I do agree, in theory, that inheritance tax should be 100% - a dead man’s belongings is a far more legitimate source of funding for the state than a man’s salary. My dad’s money is not really my money, while my salary, or my stock gains, are. But I worry about the distortion – of course most people would then spend wildly and die with nothing, and nothing would be gained.
OP, you know, we have places for people like you. Communes. Go there and share, show up all the psycho squares. Jokes aside, I really think you should, it’s the nicest, most cooperative, failsafe, beneficial way to determine who’s right. Can’t break anything (except dreams) and it’s a fun adventure.
Tree
2d ago
ensure permanent domination
Not how politics work. It’s never over. The entire political spectrum moves left with the new median voter, maintaining equal winning chances. Show goes on.
Tree
3d ago
Tree
4d ago
What in your circles is denounced as fringe ‘race science’ we call HBD, and it was always very popular here, culminating when mods tried to ban it against the majority. This focus does not distinguish him. Everyone and their mom flogs the genetics horse to own the progs.
Most of what you read is written by people who seem to have a lot of time on their hands, and, if you curate wisely, requires a lot of specific knowledge the man on the street does not possess. The internet is full of these idle autists.
Besides, I seem to remember TPO living in liechtenstein, which would be hard to conceal as cremieux.
Tree
4d ago
That is an insane guess. What are the million-to-one idiosyncrasies that you recognize in both?
Tree
7d ago
Even in their own fantasy, they cast themselves not as the hero, not even as the villain, but as the disloyal servant of the villain.
Tree
7d ago
Before 1990, their marginal economy was possibly propped up by the US against soviet afghanistan and soviet ally india.
With the china trade war and the war in ukraine, everyone’s talking about rare earths these days, but imo they are insignificant. The entire global market is 12 billion dollars, that’s like 20 times less than the copper market, 250 times less than the oil market. People have a strategy game view of resources, where if you don’t have them in your territory in the beginning, you’re screwed. In reality, if their price rose to significance, everyone would dig in their garden and find rare earths.
FYI, your link doesn’t work in “It's so overt that Pakistan's defense minister almost let the mask slip off. “
Tree
8d ago
You’ve banned many people who did not deserve it. Of all stripes. Censorship trespasses against your fellow man, and it harms you. I suppose it’s common enough in the new internet, people don’t have the right to express themselves anymore. But I still hold a grudge.
You‘ve even banned what you called a major influence, a friend. Then judas gave a tearful eulogy. It was the most craven, two-faced, pathetic display of regret I ever saw.
Tree
8d ago
You’re lacking in morals, and not above using your mod powers for debates, so I will.
Tree
8d ago
Just above there’s a thread about karmelo anthony. Where does his murderous rage come from? What ancestral wisdom was passed down through murders like these?
When you find yourself defending murderers, take a step back .
Do you pine for the life of gesualdo, who murdered his adulterous wife and spent the rest of his life asking his servants to beat him and god to forgive him?
Tree
8d ago
You use, excuse and legitimise an extreme minority of rage-fueled murderers to condemn everyone’s harmless daily desires. You've catastrophically misidentified who the healthy humans are.
Tree
9d ago
The religious mind may consider harm and sinfulness to be inversely correlated (smoking vs promiscuity). The latter is particularly unfair to the believers and offensive to the gods precisely because the sinners are having fun without repercussions. The greater the temptation, the stronger the smell of sulfur.
Tree
9d ago
It’s a minefield. Just this weekend I saw a couple of relatives, they have a baby, and they have looked completely exhausted for the better part of two years now. The light has gone out of their eyes. When I suggested the same thing as above, that maybe they should ignore him at night and wean him off, a grandmother rudely told me that as a childless man I had no right to an opinion. Fine, it's not my business, but if I'm right, who is going to tell them? I'm sure that the father too would be told off because it's seen as the mother's domain and her prerogative, and it would be 'selfish' for him to complain when she likely does a bigger share of the (useless) night work. There is no debate, and so they keep suffering.
Disagree, it’s way worse when the sponsor’s a dead guy. And destroy value for the dead used to be a common cultural practice.
I’d close that loophole. I don’t like foundations controlled by a ‘dead hand’ anyway, especially if they have large assets. Harvard, the rockefeller foundation, churches etc, they don’t need all those assets, they need to be brutally taxed imo. As long as joe sixpack still has to pay some taxes, the state should go after those zombie assets first.
What examples of contracts that should not be voided by death, are you thinking of? Marriage and mortgage are , hum, liquidated. Insurance contracts, work contracts, are just cancelled. Wills would definitely be voided if the inheritance tax was 100%.
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