The Era of the Great Inheritance

Tweet

It used to be that we would say about celebrity deaths, "They come in threes." But as so many celebs happen to be in their 80s and 90s now, I think we'll hear news of more and more leaving us in higher numbers. As some might say, it's just math. Beyond their passings, the one thing that doesn't get talked about much is the money. It has to go somewhere, and it will go somewhere. But we're not just talking about assets, we're talking about estates, and when it comes to celebrities, the estates may be worth a lot more than whatever comes first upfront after the funeral ends. The thing is, there are music catalogs and TV and movie residuals. Their kids and other relatives and friends will certainly be subject to receiving and controlling a lot of that, except of course, in the case of some who decided to sell their catalogs, particularly in the music industry. One is not just inheriting the wealth left behind, they are also inheriting the legacy wealth that could last for a very long time to come. Not just in music and Hollywood, we have a lot of significant wealth built up by a lot of people in business as well coming of age. A lot of money is going to soon shift into the hands of much younger people. Being a money guy, I will find it interesting how this new era of wealth, obtained by a mass influx of inheritances, will impact things. Wealth concentration, labor participation, consumer spending, and other economic impacts. Because when you have a massive wealth transfer such as I think we will see, it has to have at least some impact. It's a lot of money. Of course, also being an investor, I have a lot of curiosity about where it will go and how it will be spent in the decades to come. Because it's not just celebrities and businesspeople coming of age. It's the baby boomers as well. And when it comes to them, it may be less money, but when you add up the totality of all of the money that will be transferred in the coming years, I think we're talking about trillions of dollars. The era of the great inheritance is upon us, and I find the whole concept entirely fascinating. Will it have any impact at all? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, not all of the money is going to simply be held onto, and a lot of people will probably spend it much more lavishly than those who earned it would have ever considered doing.