I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the WSJ is Rupert Murdoch's paper. Take a look at their editorial page.
In this case I think the WaPo fact-checker was unfair in handing out Pinocchios. Four Pinocchios should be reserved for bald-faced, baseless falsities. In this case, Bernie had a source, based directly off of research. The "fact checker" criticized the details, application, and methodology of these conclusions, and offered its own, completely speculative conclusion that the real number is lower. I'm not saying this didn't deserve a Pinocchio or two, but I do think it's a bad call. That doesn't make it worthless, but I do think it certainly undermines its credibility a bit.
Here's one that seems to survive, with a little bit of humor intact:
Most of the women claims that there is nothing more painful birth! But what hit the balls ?! After the woman said for some time: "Why not give birth to another baby ?!"
Have you ever met the guy who says, "Well, embedding-ka me in the balls still a time ?!"
Orig: Большинство женщин утверждает, что нет ничего больнее родов! А как же удар по яйцам?! Спустя какое-то время женщина говорит: "А почему бы не родить еще одного ребенка?!"
Вы когда-либо встречали мужика, который скажет: "А ну, врежь-ка мне по яйцам еще разочек?!"
Most women say that there is nothing as painful as giving birth! But what about a kick in the balls?! After awhile, a woman may say: "Why don't we have another baby?" But have you ever heard a man say: "Alright, why don't you kick me in the balls on more time?!"
Honestly, this sounds pretty stupid in both Russian and English...
> Now, if i decided to give all of this to my hypothetical kids -right now-, potentially decades before I'm dead. They could grow up with it, invest it, make money, and be reasonably "rich" (not 1%, but better off than most) by the time they are in their 30s. And then they could give THAT right away to their kids, again, decades before they are dead.
> Repeat the cycle. So my grand-grand-grand-etc childrens could be absurdly rich, technically thanks to me, but where do you draw the line between whats inheritance and what is not?
Actually, you don't need to draw the line. It's covered in the tax code. There's this thing called the "gift tax." People moan about the complexity of the tax code but a lot of it is there for a reason, so you can't just go AHA and pivot a little bit and subvert the entire intent.
If you give enormous wealth to another who is not a spouse or a charity, while alive, or while dead, then you (or your estate in place of your dead spouse) will, in fact, have to pay the taxes due.
The thing is the taxes are too low and the Republicans keep zeroing them out when they get in power.
You would be wrong, because you do not understand the estate tax system in the USA. There are things like the generation skipping tax. All the significant loopholes are covered, in terms of passing on wealth and avoiding any estate tax.
That said, the estate tax is very low. The exemption is huge. The vast majority of people who die in this country are just folks and they bury their dead and they don't go through probate or have trusts. Maybe they have a little life insurance if they are lucky.
