I hate the term "the 1%" it's just a bunch of malarkey. Whether you got your money through savvy investing or hard work, it doesn't matter. What you earn, you should KEEP. I detest handouts, especially when someone tries to give them to me. Each person should get according to their work (or their ability to work. The disabled are the only ones remotely eligible for handouts, IMO).
Now I'll just watch as my karma plummets for speaking my mind on something. Oh well I guess.
Edit: I do think though that TED is wise not to wade into this battle. It is a very politically charged topic, especially right now.
So, you are up for some kind of strong inheritance tax to ensure that people have to work hard or invest savvily rather than just inherit money from their family.
'Cos, you know, inherited money is neither gotten "according to their work" or "earned", but rather received purely on the basis of random genetics.
Everybody should be free to do with their money as they please. This includes that one should be free to give money to their children as they please. The side effect that this creates a bunch of children who are rich without having earned the money, doesn't take away from that.
If his concept was that people become wealthy because they were "successful" and exceeded the effort of others, thus they deserve to be wealthy then I absolutely think inheritance takes away from that concept.
So is the fact that you have a home as a child. I don't see that your argument holds water. The fact that you live where you live is pure genetics as well. Why don't you ship your money to starving ethiopians?
If you're going to argue that, then you have to be willing to give up what you have too. If you're going to talk about the 1% in America, you have to talk about the USA as the 1%, because, let's face it -- if you live in the US, you've got a hell of a chance of being better off than most of the world.
Now you're getting it. Educational opportunities, nutrition, etc. It is exactly these institutional inequalities which lead to the un-meritocratic wealth distributions which are causing such instability.
Also, you posed a false dichotomy "Whether you got your money through savvy investing or hard work" and when you were called out on this by having other options for people's money sources pointed out, said that you "don't see" and changed the subject to something emotionally charged.
I get not liking "the 1%" but you do the exact same thing by using the word "handouts". You swapped one co-opted term for another. One can only assume you really mean "welfare" when you say "handouts", and that to me means you have no idea what welfare is or what it does for the families and people that need it.
Your car breaks down, your cellphone gets no signal. You'd be pretty happy for a "handout" you'd self-describe as "assistance" or "help" or a "good deed."
Does it mean I have the right to take a car and a cellphone from any nearby person that looks rich enough to afford another one? After all, I need it clearly more than he does, so forcefully taking it from him is completely justified. In fact, if he objects, I'm completely justified to call him a greedy pig - I gave him an opportunity to do a good deed, and he dares to object? Despicable.
Because when people give voluntarily, there's no state involved. People can and do give without any need for the state to intervene. When the state intervenes, it always takes. It can not give anything without forcefully taking it from somebody first.
Now I'll just watch as my karma plummets for speaking my mind on something. Oh well I guess.
Edit: I do think though that TED is wise not to wade into this battle. It is a very politically charged topic, especially right now.