INHERITANCE: Where Race Intersects Class
What sets this country apart, many would argue, is the fact that, since its inception, inheritance has been the key to advancement and "success". How can that be, you ask; didn't the early European settlers come here escaping poverty and religious persecution?
De Tocqueville observed the three races that inhabited the United States in 1830. He observed also the differences in their 'inheritances' or their fates: death by extinction for the native, and death by protracted labor for the Negro. Both under the laws and by the hand of the whites. We now have a fourth group, the Hispanic or Mestizo, formed from mixture of the three. The Chinese, brought here to work on the nation's railroads were allowed to work in the gold fields, but any gold they found could be confiscated under the "Supreme's" ruling that no non-white held rights to anything a white man wanted to own. Hence the historic phrase "Chinaman's Chance".
Fast forward to the 21st Century: The Big Casino! Global stock markets, derivatives and related trading "opportunities"; and you find the same pattern, largely, in inheritance by grouping. Trust Babies, almost exclusively white males, who "day trade" stocks and other investment instruments to extend their inheritances, and everyone else, mostly minorities, who have no inheritance to "invest", except for job-related "savings", managed by others.
What to do? Well, for starters, minorities should read David Copperfield and diligently "save" ten percent of every dime that crosses their palm. Then they should learn how to grow that saving by investment. Technology (computers, especially) makes it possible and even easy today. And, best of all, you can hide your holdings among all those trillions of other "bytes" and MANAGE THEM YOURSELF!
All of those "bytes" look the same, and you can keep them! Unless!!; you fall prey to the traps set by Congress to tie your money up in the hands of others (most white males) until you're fifty-nine and one-half! Therein lies their ability to take your money when investment bubbles "bust". (why the one-half? go figure!)
So, get busy and make sure your children and grand-children also have "inheritances". But you had better put some smarts "between their ears" so they know how to avoid the multiplicity of scams that make our casino economy run today. Remember, our economy depends on "a sucker born every minute".
Stay Vigilant!
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