Either, both? I’ve seen both but not in over a decade. What I took away from it was not only that it’s hard to get rid of large sums of money without having something tangible to show for it, but that it was meant to make the protagonist sick of spending money, to make him more frugal. But again, years since I saw the films.
You aren’t wrong, but I think the underlying message of that film helped somewhat shape the way I am now, and I’m very much anti-obscene wealth. It wasn’t until the last few years that I’ve honed my distaste for the obscenely wealthy into straight up anti-capitalism. Not that I’m wearing a sack cloth and living on a street corner. Yet. I still have to move through this stupid world. But I don’t have to like it (and maybe not for much longer if how I’m feeling right now is an indication of bigger things to come soon).
If possible, without leaving yourself with assets that add to your wealth, great. (If I recall correctly, he had to be left with just the clothes on his back, and could only give a certain percentage away to charity, plus he had the lawyer trying to fuck him over at every turn, as so many lawyers do.)
The people who end up with your $10 million will in turn have it added to their wealth, and will be tasked with getting rid of it until they are also at the threshold of $10 million. Like money hot potato. Added to that, if you waited until close to the end of the tax year, they will have even less time to pass off their potatoes.
Without straight up destroying wealth, it has to go somewhere and the system right now is deigned to pool it rather than spread it. So the pools will be skimmed until they are back to the base level, and all the runoff will be used to – ideally, maybe idealistically – improve the lives of everyone, and not just the fucking rich.
