One of the unique things about America is that super rich families tend to fall from grace.  It usually takes about three generations.  This is because of the competive nature in which America generally works.  Sure family names stay around and old money is still there but even this old money doesn’t last forever.

 It usually starts with one member of the family who is smart, industrious, and most times a little morally repugnant.  This person builds an empire of oil refineries, hotels, movie studios, search engines, or whatever is the flavor of the generation.  This person works very hard to build something from nothing.  Their children see this hard work and eventually after their parent built up the business and they too have gone from something little to something great takes over the business.  The empire grows bigger and eventually starts running on auto-pilot this second generation have children.  But these children have always had everything.  They do not understand the struggles the previous two generations had to go through.  They too believe that life is a bunch of cherries and everything comes easy.  Without these struggles they are handicapped to take over the business.

 This third generation is usually where the hedonistic attitude begins.  Once this hedonism takes over it is quick fall from grace.  Drugs, Parties, Lots of Sex, and extravagant money is no object spending quickly depletes the family fortune.  Occasionally they have some kids that are not morons and keep it going longer but few of these families ever regain their former greatness.

 One great example of this is the Hiltons.  The Grandfather built the empire, his son kept it going and growing, and well Paris will destroy it if she can. 

 This shows that the economic theory of relativity holds another interesting consequence.  Because the third generation never saw what having little was like they have a very hard time imagining the struggles that were need to accomplish this.  They never truly appreciate what they have.

 I wanted to add one other thing about this third generation.  They also tend to be the ones that are more open to income redistribution.  I think this is because they feel guilty for having so much while others have so little, but it also because they did not see what it took to get there and the hard work of those before them.  Perhaps it is a sense of being overwhelmed that they could never build the empire bigger.  I am not sure.  After all I am just a guy blogging who hopes that my grandchildren have an empire to destroy.