The wealth tax proposed by Bernie Sanders has reignited the already prevalent wealth shaming crowd, many of whom say that the wealthy must be taxed more because they are "hoarding" their wealth, and it needs to be in the hands of people who need it more.
I blame Scrooge McDuck.
Scrooge McDuck hoarded his wealth of gold in bank vaults. Mr. McDuck famously liked to dive in and swim around in his gold. But this vision is wrong, and most interestingly, what's wrong about it reveals that the critics of the wealthy don't even understand their own criticism well enough to apply it consistently.
The essential complaint, underlying everything else, is that the wealthy are greedy. But it makes little sense for a greedy person to hoard their money in a vault, because as long as it lies in the vault it's not making them more money. With gold, you might get lucky and hold onto it while the price goes up, but with fiat money, hiding it in a vault or under your mattress only ensures that you are losing wealth as the money diminishes in value over time.
What the greedy wealthy person who's not an irrational nincompoop does is to invest their money, which really just means letting other people use it with a promise to pay it back with interest. Even the money sitting in a standard bank account is being borrowed by others, to buy a car, do home repairs, start a business, etc.
That's not hoarding; it's helping others by letting them use your money. It's also not generosity or kindness, but a desire to make more money.
In other words, if you apply that complaint of greediness consistently, you'll see why rich people generally do not actually hoard their money. They're too greedy to do so.
I don't really disagree with you, but for the sake of argument, what about the children of the wealthy who haven't really done anything to earn the money that they are getting? They are basically just inheriting it and living off of it. Sure there are some that use it to make their own way financially, but others that do not. I think most people are more upset about he lot in life they were given to start with more than they are that the rich are greedy.
The children of the wealthy will have an inherently weightier responsibility to "preserve" that wealth. Many do not and by the 3rd generation, much of that wealth is lost.
I like Scrooge McDuck. He takes care of his nephews. He swims in gold coins because he finds it fun. I also suspect his oldest nephew Donald might have more wealth with his shares in Disney.
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Looks great but I have feeling that might be quite painful.
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