A survey by UK asset manager, Canada Life, earlier this year found one in five British millionaires aged over 45 is not planning on leaving anything behind for their heirs. Nearly half of the 1,000 surveyed said they would spend it before their time was up, and 9 percent would leave it to charity. These are drastic moves on parents’ behalf, but if anything could install motivation then it is the fear of running out of money. This is more pronounced for wealthy scions who have often never had to worry about money.
Over-privileged children tend to act recklessly without considering the consequences. Often this leads to them hurting themselves and their families because of addiction and/or violence. In other cases, their actions ruin the lives of many—such as when one affluent Texas teen killed four people in a well-publicized drunk-driving accident. We’ve seen a growing number of these children in recent years, driven in large part by the burgeoning number of extremely wealthy families. More rich and Super Rich families (those with $500 million or more) are being minted these days than at any time in history. Assuming the same percentage of children of the ultra-wealthy act out and there are considerably more such families, there will be a significant rise in the number of over-privileged children.
