[widowithfoursons]

I have noted a trend in the WWII group. They don't have wills (I guess they figure the State can best decide where their assets belong); they love Medicare even when they can afford to pay, and they think if they made it to 80 that they can live forever. (Not that there's anything wrong with that).

[glc1173@aol.com]

Remember that one - major - reason that boomers have so little equity compared to their parents at the same age is that taxes are so high in order to give even the most-affluent senior every conceivable program. Today's seniors didn't have to pay so much taxes for programs for affluent ancestors!

[Texan5]

This looks like just another racket for attorneys to exploit for money, especially if the prohibitions against frivolous lawsuits get stiffer. Which I hope they will...

[Cacique]

These people are morons, as are most people that believe that the good times will last forever. I bet they don't even carry a spare tire in the trunk of their car thinking they will never get a flat tire.

[DonQ]

Inheritance fights, perhaps second only to divorce & custody fights, are the nastiest form of litigation. People really become over-involved in squeezing the last drop out of the old rind. In many instances, if they spent as much effort in taking care of grandma as they do in squabbling over the inheritance, grandma would still be with us.

Someone I know now has been keeping up an inheritance fight over her mother's estate for six years since her mother's death. She is entitled by the will to an equal share with her two sisters - uncommonly generous of mom considering that this one hardly visited while the two sisters shared the caretaking duties for a decade. The two sisters, being in the same state with mom's will and assets, are the executors. They pretty much offered a quick three-way division, but my friend is obsessed with the notion that the sisters have padded their expense accounts or something -- if they did, it couldn't be by much, they're charging a tenth of what a bank or lawyer would charge. My friend, against everyone's advice, is spending 100% of her money to fuss over 5% of her mom's money, and, while this prolonged litigation is going on, the entire estate is boiling away (because the sisters are legally entitled to pay their legal fees out of the estate) so even if she wins, my friend's one-third will be much less than what she was originally offered. I should add that by carrying on (and on and on) this lawsuit, my friend is no longer being spoken to by ANY of her relatives.

One of the reasons that inheritances are now so unreliable (if, indeed, they were ever reliable) is that people are now living so much longer after retirement. They live long enough to use up their savings. They could live for years in a nursing home environment, and nursing homes charge the earth (and to qualify for a public subsidy for nursing home care, the elderly person must become pauperized), leaving very little to inherit. There is also the possibility that an aged parent might remarry, which would shift the majority of the inheritance to the spouse.

[pabianice]

When Kotzer asked what the husband did for a living, they explained he was a "waiter." "The wife said, 'He's waiting for the inheritance,' " said Kotzer, of Thornhill, Ontario. "A lot of boomers are depending on what their parents have saved all these years to pay off their debts and loans.

Also voted straight Democrat in the last election. I have zero sympathy for such people.