Trustafarians Want to Tell You How to Live

The Daily Beast ^ | October 31, 2014 | Joel Kotkin

[C19fan]

Americans have always prided themselves on being a nation of the self-made, where class and the accident of birth did not determine success. Yet increasingly we are changing into a society where lineage does matter—and likely this process has just started, threatening not only our future prosperity but the very nature of our society.

In some ways the emerging age of inheritance stems from the success Americans enjoyed over the past half century. Think not only of the wealthy entrepreneurs, but the vast middle class that purchased their homes, often for what in hindsight look like very low sums, and which now can be sold at massively higher prices. In part this reflects the reality that previous generations simply had an easier time accumulating real estate and other assets at low prices. As a friend once told me, “A chimpanzee could have made money in L.A. real estate—and many did.”

[C19fan]

The US developing an aristocracy without the ideal of noblesse oblige.

[Organic Panic]

Vote for democrats. They want everything after you die. Even if they don’t manage to take it from you while you’re alive.

[Samurai_Jack]

Urban Dictionary:
1) trustafarian

priviliged white kids who subscribe to the hippie lifestyle (because they can) since they have no worries about money, a job etc. They can then devote their lives to eating organic, following Phish, and wearing dreadlocks (no need for job interviews).

Used in context:
Sarah is a trustafarian. It’s totally evidenced by the combination of her brand new car and nice digs with her “earthy” clothes and dreadlocks.

2) trustafarian

a. a spoiled rich white kid who smokes pot.
b. a person who, in an act of rebellion has taken to smoking pot, pan-handling, and following grateful dead rip-off bands during the week, and then returning to his or her parent’s cozy home in the suburbs during the weekend.
c. one who lives with poorer people in an attempt to gain credibility, or street-cred, while disguising the trust fund they actually live off

Used in context:
Don’t let that guy smoke any of your stash, he’s a trustafarian, and never has his own to share.

[Samurai_Jack]

3) Trustafarian

DEMOCRAT

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Sadly, the Welfare State has gradually destroyed any sense of pride that people have by being self-sufficient and self-made. There have always been trust fund babies — Doris Duke and pretty much all the Rockefeller kids come to mind. But today, even the poor can be “Trustafarians” by living off the public teat and not having to work.

[oh8eleven]

Sadly, the Welfare State has gradually destroyed any sense of pride
Actually, it's destroyed any sense of shame.
And there are waaaaay too many on welfare who are proud that they can live a "normal" lifestyle without ever having to work for it.

[DJ MacWoW]

Wow! He said the trustafarians are Progressives. I’m surprised.

[reasonisfaith]

“one who lives with poorer people in an attempt to gain credibility, or street-cred, while disguising the trust fund they actually live off”

Bill Ayers.

[Excellence]

Read the comments at the site. The level of ignorance is astonishing.

[reasonisfaith]

Progressivism consistently accomplishes the precise opposite not only of the progressivist group objectives but also of the personal aspirations of the individual progressive.

At the deepest level, the progressive’s personal aspiration is to regain the authenticity he lost when he rejected the reality of God.

But they lose progressively even worldly authenticity—as seen in the life patterns of these pretentious heirs to Western decadence.

[reasonisfaith]

For the sake of accuracy—it seems you don’t need to be rich to be a spoiled brat.

To live in this country for the past half century is to live in luxury, compared to traditional realities of povery.

So while Bill Ayers revolutionized the process of spoiled brats becoming busybodies, general affluence and sin have given rise to widespread “trustafarians” of mere middle class means.

[BillyBonebrake]

It comes down to what assets like real estate we had in place before we chose to allow “energy prices to necessarily skyrocket”. This country was built on cheap energy.

[OpusatFR]

Lena Dunham case in point.

[ViLaLuz]

Occupy Wall Street types.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, this is new — I mean, it’s not as if we had a Kennedy family, a Roosevelt family...

[JoeFromSidney]

I think the argument is grossly exaggerated. That $41 trillion to be inherited between 1998 and 2052 comes to less than a trillion a year, or about 6% of GDP. Moreover, much of that wealth is in stocks, whose value has been inflated as a result of low interest rates (value of an asset equals income from the asset divided by the interest rate). When the Fed ends its zero-interest-rate policy (something that can't continue, won't), the price of stocks will collapse. Same thing for prices of housing.