William Vanderbilt, declared in 1885, "Inherited wealth is a big handicap to happiness. It is as certain death to ambition as cocaine is to morality."
Journalists quickly seized upon this provocative idea and produced a story featuring Warren Buffett on the cover of the magazine, titled "Should You Leave It All to the Children?"
In answering that question, the magazine quoted him, "My kids are going to carve out their own place in this world, and they know I'm for them whatever they want to do."
But he believed that setting up his heirs with "a lifetime supply of food stamps just because they came out of the right womb" can be "harmful for them and is an anti-social act."
As it happens, Buffett has three grown children -- two sons, one daughter -- and while they are comfortably provided for, they will not have huge fortunes like, say, retailer Sam Walton's billionaire children.
To Buffett, the perfect amount to leave one's children would be "enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing. Love is the greatest advantage a parent can give."
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