2220 Net Asset Creep

Big news these days. The gap in assets between the top and bottom is growing. Wait a minute! Weren't we told 10 years ago that this was going to happen as the "greatest generation" which struggled through the Depression and World War II and scrimped and saved and invested in America began dying off and passing along their assets to the boomers? Weren't we told years ago that there would be an unprecedented amount of wealth, trillions and trillions, changing hands in this country in the early 21st century?

We're not rich by any means, but if my husband's step-father hadn't withdrawn his RCA pension and invested it in the stock market back in the early 1990s, and if he hadn't died first leaving it all to my mother-in-law, his wife of 52 years, I would've worked until age 65 or later instead of retiring at 60. And now we have money to invest for our older years which we wouldn't have had. He was just a poor kid from Indianapolis' south side who worked his way up in management, but we are the benficiaries of his hard work and the stock market boom of the 90s.

An estimated $12 trillion will be passed along to heirs in 2017 just about 10 years from now--and in the next 50 years, $41 trillion. Will there be a widening gap? Yes, unless someone in Washington decides it isn't fair that our fathers and grandfathers worked so hard, and it should be stripped away and given to someone not in the family.

The wealthy can afford the advisors and lawyers and accountants to help them work their way through the tax code. The rest of us can't. As the media starts ginning up the music on "unfair," "poverty is growing," and "it's Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy," just keep in mind your dad and mom who rarely went to a nice restaurant, or travelled, or bought new clothes. Then turn off the TV.