Wealth Inequality - again

[Ronstar]

This is a more accurate analogy--

You tell the kid to buy his clothes, food, etc out of his allowance. You then cut his allowance and then get mad when he can't still purchase all of the same things he could before. In fact, you seem to expect him to actually start paying rent as well.

For the past 40 years, the cost of the federal government has bounced around 20% of GDP (its higher now due to the recession and stimulus spending, but I'm talking long term here). We have our taxes set currently so that they only bring in about 15% of GDP.

If you want to continue with a 15% GDP tax rate, you need to specify what government services you want to remove/reduce to get down to a 15% GDP cost structure. In order to get down to that cost level, you are going to need to make real cuts in Defense, SS, Medicare, or Medicaid. What serious cuts do you advocate making?

I was going to post my own list of removals/reductions, but I found this list to be more comprehensive.

http://www.patriotactionnetwork.com/forum/topics/if-the-following-useless

 

[NW-Bound]

Quite a few federal agencies on the above list! Recently, a friend of mine sent me a similarly long list of state agencies in California.

I am reading Deadly Spin, a book about the sorry state of health care in the US, and am currently at the chapter where the author, a former PR representative of Cigna who changed his mind, saw with his own eyes the lack of health care in some poor Appalachian counties.

I just had this idea. Why can't we retrain and convert some of the existing public workers to become health care workers, and to send them into needy areas? It's a matter of prioritizing and to put your money where it is most important, the same with government as with individuals, yes?

 

[Independent]

Only part way thru this thread..but just had to comment on this..

IMHO...what some of you might be missing in the Gates discussion.....is this: "Gates and others like him "make their own opportunities". No one GAVE them to him. Did IBM make a stupid mistake? Yes. Did they give him the opportunity. No. What THEY gave HIM was "a NO"!
GATES is the one that had the vision...that they refused to see.

I think the context of the statement is important. The original claim was that if you redistributed all the wealth, in 10 years it would be back in the original set of hands.

One counter-example to that claim is Bill Gates. Yes, he saw an historically big opportunity, grabbed it, and ran with it. But, if he had to start over again, the chances are near zero that he would see another equally big opportunity. He's bright and hard working and would probably find something that would make him more money than the average Joe. But he wouldn't find another opportunity like writing the operating system for the first PCs.

There are other people besides Gates who could have run with that same opportunity. But they were born a couple years later and weren't in a position to grab it, or a couple years earlier and were committed to something else, or just didn't know IBM was outsourcing. Those other people aren't lazy grasshoppers, they're probably above average earners today. They just didn't happen to be in the right place at the right time. If we gave everyone a new start, one of them might be the guy who finds the next great opportunity.

 

[Independent]

But, but, but, what's all this have to do with wealth inequality again? Do we give an individual credit only if he could justify beyond any reasonable doubt that luck had nothing to do with his success? Else, we would strip him of all his money or what?

Excellent point. The article linked in the OP asks why so many Americans don't seem to care about rising inequality. There were some good responses including "Most people don't know it's going on" and "Most people think that inequality isn't a problem because we have equal opportunity" and "Most people think that the rich provided a unique good".

So why do I care? I see these attitudes showing up primarily when we argue about how we distribute taxes. Should tax rates be progressive? If so, how steep should we make the curve?

One of the arguments used by people who argue for pretty flat taxes is that the only reason some people have more is because they worked harder, and progressive tax rates "punish hard work".
A different argument is that people who have tremendous financial success produced some huge and unique benefit to society, which wouldn't have happened without them.

I happen to disagree with both of those. I think that most people who have a lot really did work harder than the average Joe. But, the harder work somehow turned into disproportionately greater rewards, and the disproportionate part is luck. To a certain extent, progressive taxes result on a higher tax rate on luck than on hard work, and that's okay with me.

I also think that the "unique" service that the very wealthy provide (like Bill Gates and MS-DOS) would have been provided by someone else if this individual hadn't done it (in this case, some IT people think someone else would have done a better job). There's no long term loss to society in taxing Bill at higher rates than most of us, there are plenty of people who will fill that role.

So I don't happen to buy those two arguments in favor of flat taxes. There may be other good arguments, I certainly wouldn't go back to 90% marginal rates, but these two arguments don't do anything for me.

 

[NW-Bound]

I agree with Independent that if it weren't for Bill Gates, someone else would have grabbed that opportunity and ran with it. Maybe Gary Kildall would have been sitting at the throne. The era of the PC had arrived, and Gates was only one of the many who knew it was a historical moment.

But all this talk about what alternative universe we would have sans Bill Gates was missing a big point, I believe. That is, without Gates, we would still have another Microsoft, and it would most likely be another American company. Yes, an American company.

On the hardware side, other than Intel, who else could have built for us the modern microprocessor? It's AMD, another American company, an underdog who is still giving Intel a hard time. I have nothing against Intel, but I like to buy AMD processors whenever I can to support this underdog. We need competition to keep Intel from being a monopoly, and it's great when the competition to an American corporation is another American company. And the distant 3rd CPU maker, Cyrix, used to be another American company!

The American economic system is far from perfect, but there are things that we still do well. I am sure several tomes have been written about this. We need to remind ourselves why we have been able to maintain some technological edges.


PS. Microsoft is the biggest software house, but not the most innovative company. Gates was paranoid and constantly worried about competition, and has resorted to dirty tactics to kill competition, as described in Barbarians led by Gates, a book written by two insiders.

 

[Independent]

I was going to post my own list of removals/reductions, but I found this list to be more comprehensive.

IF THE FOLLOWING USELESS GOVERNMENT SERVICES ARE ABOLISHED.... IMAGINE THE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS SAVED!!!!!! - Patriot Action Network

For some reason, that list is missing the numbers. You'd think that the guy who compiled it would have had the budgets available right next to the names, why didn't he copy them down?

I'll pretend that I put this list on a spreadsheet with the associated budgets. Then I sort the list by budget. There's probably and 80/20 rule. The least expensive 80% of the items only represent 20% of the total savings, and that savings is nearly invisible compared to the whole federal budget. The more expensive 20% add up to more money, it's worthwhile listing them and explaining exactly what we lose when we cut those programs.

There's a classic story about Ronald Reagan from Donald Stockman. When Stockman put together such a list for Reagan (he had one program per page), Reagan was unable to make the kinds of cuts he had promised. Once he saw what each program did, he found himself continuing most.

 

[jdw_fire]

Why does WesternSkys have to put down 'facts'... sure, your facts were acurate... but does not mean that he has to come to the same conclusion as you on what those facts indicate...

He might think that Bill Gates CAN reproduce his success in some other way... just because he got help the first time does not mean he might not get help the second...

i notice that you say "He might think" which implies you dont know what he thinks; i dont either. that is because he wont discuss his opinion of how the facts that i pointed out would affect gates' fortune. instead he replied with sarcasm and then focused on me personally. what kind of logical discussion can be had when he resorts to those tactics? he doesnt have to agree with my opinions (no one does) but it would be nice (and civilized) if he discussed the facts instead of using the tactics he used.

 

[jdw_fire]

Sorry jdw_fire...but have you considered the facts you are holding onto...might be a bit one sided? And do they really have any bearing whatsoever...on what Bill Gates was able to turn it into?? (gently asking...).

i would have been happy to discuss that with WS (or you if you like) if that had been his in any of his replies but neither question was, instead he was sarcastic and then made it personal.

I mean....isn't that sort of like ...those that say "X person is wealthy because they were lucky or they inherited it?". When in fact, the person that was lucky or inherited had choices. They could "blow that wealth" to the point they have nothing...or they can choose to " use it to create more wealth".

Gates turned his opportunity into something for himself, for others and for the world. And I am grateful...because I really like my laptop.

this makes me think you missed the point of the first post i made wrt gates. i was responding to someone who said (paraphrasing) if we gathered up all the wealth in the US and evenly distributed it to everyone, in 10 years it would again be back in the hands of the people who have it now. i then said i didnt 100% agree with that and gave a couple of examples, 1 which supported his statement and 1 which gave reason why i didnt think so (gates). i never said gates wasnt smart, didnt make good choices, wasnt talented or anything along those lines. all i said was that i didnt think he would be as rich as he is now bacause there were some lucky events and timings that happened that allowed him the opprotunity that he exploited. and since that is all history and they wouldnt happen again i didnt think he would be as rich again. i was in no way belittling his acomplishments, but i think that when you look at the facts objectively you would have to admit that there was some luck involved in his fortune.

 

[HFWR]

I was going to post my own list of removals/reductions, but I found this list to be more comprehensive.

IF THE FOLLOWING USELESS GOVERNMENT SERVICES ARE ABOLISHED.... IMAGINE THE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS SAVED!!!!!! - Patriot Action Network

They sure do a lot of shouting on that site...

I saw plenty of stuff that could be cut or eliminated in that list, but it's nebulous to claim that it is a list of "unconstitutional" departments. Unless it's been before the SCOTUS, and ruled as such, it is only opinion that it's unconstitutional. It is also a stretch to say they are all useless programs, designed to redistribute wealth.

 

[M Paquette]

For some reason, that list is missing the numbers. You'd think that the guy who compiled it would have had the budgets available right next to the names, why didn't he copy them down?

Heh. It would have contradicted the author's point. Closing all those agencies down wouldn't even shrink the annual deficit significantly. Ah, but think how much cheaper and easier it would be to build all those nuclear power plants without pesky government regulation and oversight. And we'll need them, what with shutting down the Tennessee Valley Authority, a huge power production operation.

 

[Ronstar]

They sure do a lot of shouting on that site...

I saw plenty of stuff that could be cut or eliminated in that list, but it's nebulous to claim that it is a list of "unconstitutional" departments. Unless it's been before the SCOTUS, and ruled as such, it is only opinion that it's unconstitutional. It is also a stretch to say they are all useless programs, designed to redistribute wealth.

I know the site, the author, and the list is extreme. Certainly some of those listed agencies and departments provide necessary services. But my point is there are ways and places to cut spending without jeopardizing necessary services. It seems that we have far more gov't services and programs than we had 40-50 years ago, and maybe some aren't necessary. But I'm done bashing government spending - I got my tax refund check today.

 

[Hamlet]

I suspect that removing some of those would cause pretty serious problems down the road.

I'm not a big fan of the CIA. I would like them to operate with less secrecy and probably a smaller budget. However, I think that very few people would recommend having no intelligence gathering capability at all.

I shudder to think about how a financial crisis would go without FDIC insurance.

While I would scale back the scope of what they do, I don't think completely dismantling the Department's of Energy and Education would be the way to go.

But the basic problem is that none of them is particularly expensive in a big picture sense. You could cut the whole list completely and it wouldn't balance the budget.

We'd still need to take about what we are going to do with Defense, SS, Medicare, and Medicaid.

It's like a guy not buying a Coke because he has a mortgage he can't afford. Saving that dollar is all well and good, but he still needs to deal with the mortgage.

I was going to post my own list of removals/reductions, but I found this list to be more comprehensive.

IF THE FOLLOWING USELESS GOVERNMENT SERVICES ARE ABOLISHED.... IMAGINE THE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS SAVED!!!!!! - Patriot Action Network

 

[Westernskies]

i dont think that is 100% correct. for example, buffett (if he were still alive) would probably rebuild his fortune but i dont think gates would. a lot of the gates fortune required luck. he was lucky that IBM didnt care about the software rights to the operating system (PC-DOS) so they just gave them away to gates (hence MS-DOS), that wouldnt happen again. gates was lucky that he (and apple) got windows from xerox, that wouldnt happen again, etc. i think there were 1 hit wonders that wouldnt be able to reproduce their 1 hit. and hence wouldnt be rich again.

for the most part i do agree about most poor people as most would probably squander their new found wealth. but there would probably be some that wouldnt

i would have been happy to discuss that with WS

I'd be happy to rationally discuss "facts" with you if you would post some; which is why I offered up examples of such to you regarding your post on the banking industry... The post you keep referring back to as chock-full-o' facts (highlighted above) is nothing more than speculative opinion on your part about an imaginary future outcome. How do you possibly prove any of these "what-if" notions?

 

[Silver]

this makes me think you missed the point of the first post i made wrt gates. i was responding to someone who said (paraphrasing) if we gathered up all the wealth in the US and evenly distributed it to everyone, in 10 years it would again be back in the hands of the people who have it now. i then said i didnt 100% agree with that and gave a couple of examples, 1 which supported his statement and 1 which gave reason why i didnt think so (gates). i never said gates wasnt smart, didnt make good choices, wasnt talented or anything along those lines. all i said was that i didnt think he would be as rich as he is now bacause there were some lucky events and timings that happened that allowed him the opprotunity that he exploited. and since that is all history and they wouldnt happen again i didnt think he would be as rich again. i was in no way belittling his acomplishments, but i think that when you look at the facts objectively you would have to admit that there was some luck involved in his fortune.

I'm the someone who stated the above as a personal theory.....and I stand by it. But it is obviously a generalization.

I believe that luck is a factor in almost everything, but that intelligence allows some people to be more successful then others. Putting yourself in the right place, developing good relationships with other people that can help create an advantage for you, and understanding implications of situations are all essential, and are much more likely to happen because of personal intelligence rather then luck.

 

[sheehs1]

i would have been happy to discuss that with WS (or you if you like) if that had been his in any of his replies but neither question was, instead he was sarcastic and then made it personal.




this makes me think you missed the point of the first post i made wrt gates. i was responding to someone who said (paraphrasing) if we gathered up all the wealth in the US and evenly distributed it to everyone, in 10 years it would again be back in the hands of the people who have it now. i then said i didnt 100% agree with that and gave a couple of examples, 1 which supported his statement and 1 which gave reason why i didnt think so (gates). i never said gates wasnt smart, didnt make good choices, wasnt talented or anything along those lines. all i said was that i didnt think he would be as rich as he is now bacause there were some lucky events and timings that happened that allowed him the opprotunity that he exploited. and since that is all history and they wouldnt happen again i didnt think he would be as rich again. i was in no way belittling his acomplishments, but i think that when you look at the facts objectively you would have to admit that there was some luck involved in his fortune.

I don't think I missed your point. Granted there were many points being made in the thread that made it difficult to follow on a first read but....I suppose I was arguing against the second point you were originally trying to make...(that Gates would not be as rich again). I hear what you are saying though...in that IF the time for him to have made the splash had past...he wouldn't have made as big a splash.

But ...similar things can be said about most everyone in our history...so what is the point? . It's like saying...or not honoring Jonas Salk for the polio vaccine...because had he not come up with it when he did...someone else would have. Same for the locomotive...airplane..telephone...basically every great invention or modification that changed society.
So...I suppose I was questioning...your using that as an argument to that point.

 

[Mulligan]

I'm the someone who stated the above as a personal theory.....and I stand by it. But it is obviously a generalization.

I believe that luck is a factor in almost everything, but that intelligence allows some people to be more successful then others. Putting yourself in the right place, developing good relationships with other people that can help create an advantage for you, and understanding implications of situations are all essential, and are much more likely to happen because of personal intelligence rather then luck.

Silver, I also agreed with your generalization and wanted to clarify it more assuming we are on same page. Gates really has nothing to do with it because he is an individual. Generally speaking some people have the self discipline and/or vision to accumulate assets by saving, investing, or running a business. On the other side some people have the ability to destroy their wealth by gambling, new cars, houses they can't afford, or other excessive consumerisms. If the wealth was taken away from them they would use what they had left to reaccumulate. Others would blow their new found wealth. Just a generalization with no proof it would happen, But I would think that would be a likely outcome for most, not all, though.

 

[sheehs1]

I think the context of the statement is important. The original claim was that if you redistributed all the wealth, in 10 years it would be back in the original set of hands.

One counter-example to that claim is Bill Gates. Yes, he saw an historically big opportunity, grabbed it, and ran with it. But, if he had to start over again, the chances are near zero that he would see another equally big opportunity. He's bright and hard working and would probably find something that would make him more money than the average Joe. But he wouldn't find another opportunity like writing the operating system for the first PCs.

There are other people besides Gates who could have run with that same opportunity. But they were born a couple years later and weren't in a position to grab it, or a couple years earlier and were committed to something else, or just didn't know IBM was outsourcing. Those other people aren't lazy grasshoppers, they're probably above average earners today. They just didn't happen to be in the right place at the right time. If we gave everyone a new start, one of them might be the guy who finds the next great opportunity.

I hear what you are saying and while what is being proposed may be true in theory of the future.. ...it did not happen that way. The facts remain in that he was in the right place, at the right time, with the right intellect and talent and and he did aggressively pursue his vision (I know we all agree on that so not debating those points).
But..to the point...that... "if you redistribute wealth it will back in the same hands in 10 years".....some might be and some might not be. But one thing seems fairly certain...for those that don't know how to handle it....it will slip thru their fingers...probably to the fingers of the ones that do know how to handle it.

 

[NW-Bound]

But..to the point...that... "if you redistribute wealth it will back in the same hands in 10 years".....some might be and some might not be. But one thing seems fairly certain...for those that don't know how to handle it....it will slip thru their fingers...probably to the fingers of the ones that do know how to handle it.

I don't think people who are for wealth redistribution would be able to refute your claim. Besides, look at the absolute redistribution scheme in the past, like what the Communists have done. Where did that get them?

Of course, most people are talking about a more reasonable social system, which takes from the intelligent, the rich, the hard and smart workers in order to provide some basic needs for the dumb, the poor, the unfortunate, the invalid. Then, most reasonable people would not have a problem with that either.

When people talk about just raising taxes as a way to solve problems, it bothers me as well as many here. Because it seems to me that many of the issues might be more of a structural nature than financial. Just keep throwing money at it? Please let me explain from the perhaps naive view of a non-economist, non-sociologist.

Lack of health care in poor rural areas? How many health care providers want to live in these areas? I guess we can keep raising the pay until some doctors or nurses will bite, but what is the limit?

We all want to be desk jockeys, and paper pushers, and not want to get our hands dirty. So, all the manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas because we do not want to pollute our air and water, which may be necessary to get that iSomething that we must have. And by the way, using these tools are "cool", but we leave the manufacturing of them to others. So, we do not leave work for the high school graduates, and demand college degrees for every job.

Nobody wants their children to go work on the farm, picking strawberry. Yet, we pick on the illegal immigrants who risk their lives for the jobs that we despise.

I do not know the answers to these questions. But I will not be a hypocrite to say that the problems are all caused by my countrymen, and that I did not contribute to it.

 

[sheehs1]

Of course, most people are talking about a more reasonable social system, which takes from the intelligent, the rich, the hard and smart workers in order to provide some basic needs for the dumb, the poor, the unfortunate, the invalid. Then, most reasonable people would not have a problem with that either.

I think the operative phrase in what you stated is "basic needs". Perhaps I'm wrong but are there not already many social programs that supply "basic need"...food stamps, CHIPS health care, Medicaid, subsidized housing...etc. As far as I know..everyone that ...can substantiate a need...gets support. Please correct me if I am mistaken and supply examples. So...in my view some of this redistribution stuff is going beyond "basic need".

One of my concerns with continued redistribution of wealth efforts is this. Where in the heck does it leave personally responsibility for ones self and what are the long term ramifications of that?

 

[Mulligan]

Another part of the question which I don't have the answer is at what point does redistribution through higher taxes works as a disincentive to accomplish anything? I just read an Ivy league business professor saying it's more economically rational to be a plumber than a doctor when you factor in the 10 years of lost wages on top of the mountain of student loan debt (assuming the parents aren't footing the bill). If you throw in an income tax structure that is too high at what point will people decide it's not worth the effort?

 

[NW-Bound]

I think the operative phrase in what you stated is "basic needs". Perhaps I'm wrong but are there not already many social programs that supply "basic need"...food stamps, CHIPS health care, Medicaid, subsidized housing...etc. As far as I know..everyone that ...can substantiate a need...gets support. Please correct me if I am mistaken and supply examples. So...in my view some of this redistribution stuff is going beyond "basic need".

There, we need to get to the basic question first. People need to agree on what needs to be done, and then what is the best approach to solve it.

One of my concerns with continued redistribution of wealth efforts is this. Where in the heck does it leave personally responsibility for ones self and what are the long term ramifications of that?

Eh, tell me about it. My children want my wealth to be redistributed to them too!

As I am not taking it with me, and also will not be spending it all, I think I will leave them plenty, the market God willing. But I want to be sure they will know how to handle that first. And the best way I have seen with my daughter is for her to manage within her salary. Seems to work better when she knows that she must allow for money to pay her utility bills, her car payment, etc... She has not been spending $75 for a nail job, or a $100 hair cut like when she was staying with us rent free.

 

[sheehs1]

When people talk about just raising taxes as a way to solve problems, it bothers me as well as many here. Because it seems to me that many of the issues might be more of a structural nature than financial. Just keep throwing money at it? Please let me explain from the perhaps naive view of a non-economist, non-sociologist.

Lack of health care in poor rural areas? How many health care providers want to live in these areas? I guess we can keep raising the pay until some doctors or nurses will bite, but what is the limit?

We all want to be desk jockeys, and paper pushers, and not want to get our hands dirty. So, all the manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas because we do not want to pollute our air and water, which may be necessary to get that iSomething that we must have. And by the way, using these tools are "cool", but we leave the manufacturing of them to others. So, we do not leave work for the high school graduates, and demand college degrees for every job.

Nobody wants their children to go work on the farm, picking strawberry. Yet, we pick on the illegal immigrants who risk their lives for the jobs that we despise.

I do not know the answers to these questions. But I will not be a hypocrite to say that the problems are all caused by my countrymen, and that I did not contribute to it.

I get what you are saying here...and it's an interesting point...if I'm understanding you correctly. It very well may have become "structural".

 

[jdw_fire]

I'd be happy to rationally discuss "facts" with you if you would post some; which is why I offered up examples of such to you regarding your post on the banking industry... The post you keep referring back to as chock-full-o' facts (highlighted above) is nothing more than speculative opinion on your part about an imaginary future outcome. How do you possibly prove any of these "what-if" notions?

i did post facts. see the bolded text from my original post

i dont think that is 100% correct. for example, buffett (if he were still alive) would probably rebuild his fortune but i dont think gates would. a lot of the gates fortune required luck. he was lucky that IBM didnt care about the software rights to the operating system (PC-DOS) so they just gave them away to gates (hence MS-DOS), that wouldnt happen again. gates was lucky that he (and apple) got windows from xerox, that wouldnt happen again, etc. i think there were 1 hit wonders that wouldnt be able to reproduce their 1 hit. and hence wouldnt be rich again.

for the most part i do agree about most poor people as most would probably squander their new found wealth. but there would probably be some that wouldnt

which i amplified in my 2nd post (see bolded text)

sheezz you can run amuck, instead of seeing the truth in what i posted you attack. it is obvious that you think all wealthy people do everything right. that they are better than the rest of us.

getting back to my point about gates, IBM is also partly (maybe even mostly) responsible for "revolutionizing the PC Industry" and they made a huge mistake (which was lucky for gates) by allowing gates to keep ownership of PC-DOS as they thought the hardware was the more important piece of the puzzle. gates was also lucky that IBM didnt do what apple did when it came to the hardware. IBM was very open when it came to the hardware design thus allowing anyone to build an IBM PC clone but since gates owned the OS, all the clone pc makers used his OS (otherwise they wouldnt have been true clones) and he made a ton of money (IBM got nothing from this but if they hadnt built that PC none of this would have happened for gates). gates wouldnt have made nearly as much if IBM hadnt made the mistake of letting gates own the OS and license its use on each pc. it wasnt till his company was wildly successful that microsoft "developed" windows which apple says microsoft stole from them but really both got from xerox. i never said gates was only lucky, that he didnt work hard, or that he didnt have skills. but the fact that he was lucky cant be rationally denied. and the opprotunity he capitolized on wont come again.

the point i was trying to make was that if all the wealth in this country was distributed evenly to everyone i dont think gates would have anywhere near all his wealth back in 10 years (or in any time frame for that matter) and i gave some reasons why i thought that. i had no intension of tearing down your idol. oh and BTW i never really wrote about steve jobs, only that apple got the core of their OS from xerox, which is true.

granted i do make speculations based on those facts and i made it very clear with my choice of words (and you pointed them out in your last post) where i was speculating, but that is better than making speculations not based on facts.

and in answer to your last question, the only way would be to actually do the wealth leveling as was hypothisized in the post i was orginally responding to, but i dont think (nor do i want) that to happen.

 

[Mulligan]

There, we need to get to the basic question first. People need to agree on what needs to be done, and then what is the best approach to solve it.

Eh, tell me about it. My children want my wealth to be redistributed to them too!

As I am not taking it with me, and also will not be spending it all, I think I will leave them plenty, the market God willing. But I want to be sure they will know how to handle that first. And the best way I have seen with my daughter is for her to manage within her salary. Seems to work better when she knows that she must allow for money to pay her utility bills, her car payment, etc... She has not been spending $75 for a nail job, or a $100 hair cut like when she was staying with us rent free.

Good points. The ironic thing is by you teaching your daughter to live within her means, she will appreciate and respect more her inherited money you give her ........ In due time of course!

 

[Westernskies]

Nobody wants their children to go work on the farm, picking strawberry.

I'd rather have my kid picking strawberries for minimum wage than collecting welfare.

BTW, I used to hoe soybeans when I was 14 for a buck an hour and all the well water I could drink...and look how I turned out. It did teach me the value of a dollar at an early age, though...