Well, at least I'm not serious
Professor Bainbridge (who, if you're into corp law, is a must read) shocked me today by showing a prejudice against the wealthy, yet tacky:
I've decided in favor of keeping the estate tax
Why? This and this. In fact, in these cases I think I'm in favor of bills of attainder.
The links go to two new reality shows about pretty (and, at least by implication of the show descriptions, superficial) women used to spending vast amounts of money. Even worse, Prof. Yin decided to chime in with his two cents:
After all, we could just look to Ted Kennedy, Osama bin Laden, Andrew "Max Factor heir" Luster, the Menendez brothers, among others, to see that super-large inheritances are a bad idea.
But certainly, this is merely an argument against wealth per se (which neither of them seem inclined to make), rather than against inheritances as such. Vast amounts of wealth can be applied to the service of evil whether inherited or not. And I would have thought that their recoil at the aesthetics of the shows would have been more well-tempered: it's as easy to be tacky and classless on the cheap as with vast amounts of cash.
Indeed, I'm almost of the opinion that this libel of the wealthy should be of the nature of a crime. Both the profs should be forced to go out drinking on a Saturday night, surrounded by a number of undergraduate boys going binge drinking and girls in far too skimpy skirts, in order to see that when it comes to the tacky, we live in a truly classless society. (Prof. Yin, however, should get a suspended sentence, due to his mitigating circumstances.)
And since I have the opportunity to say it here directly: congratulations to Prof. Yin and his wife!
Comments
Posted by: Tung Yin | November 1, 2003 11:23 PM
Posted by: improbable | November 3, 2003 5:54 PM