In the Bank of Wealth Bondage, where The Happy Tutor was Senior Dungeon Master to the Stars, and I was his apprentice, working with the less corrupt clients, and those needing less in the way of Moral or Spiritual guidance, or corporal punishment, or who just wanted moral improvement at a lower price point, we were housed in the Family Wealth Division, and our Sister Organization was Estate Planning. Wisdom and Wealth was in the Chapel down the hall, near the sauna where I doubled as cabana boy, in my early days, before turning to prostitution, being saved by the Grace of God, and entering the wisdom and virtue field, at the high end. Last night, drunk as a lord, Tutor was holding forth on Our Noble Trade:
Estate Planning is Dead, Long Live Legacy Planning. Estate planning is about preparing money for heirs, in the largest amount possible, as well protected as possible. Legacy Planning is about passing on assets, values, and a way of life that enhances the well being of the heir, family, and the communities important to them. Estate Planning is a financial science. Legacy planning is at the intersection of love, wisdom, money. Estate planners need to think like an attorney, even if they are not one. Legacy planners need to think like a liberally educated human being, even if they are not one. Attorneys have a monopoly on the documents. They are trained to win, and make another lose. Uncle Sam is the enemy. The moral inadequacy of the macho estate planning paradigm is painful to behold, or to be subjected to. Legacy planners see the documents as a sunken treasure ship, around which an ecosystem develops. To be a legacy planner is to have a moral imagination, as well as technical chops. The attorney maximizes net to the heirs. The legacy planner asks how the family will thrive, as individuals, as a family, and as part of community. (Well governed, ill governed, despotic, democratic, saved or damned). So maybe estate planning needs “An Extreme Makeover," or better yet a Takeover by the poets, roisterers, and street prophets. Come let us drink!
Thriving communities. The purpose of legacy planning is thriving communities? I could be a comic at Heckerling warming up the crowd for Tutor who could give his infamous talk on "Passing on The Right Amount to Heirs." He has this Sermon based on the Book of Job, the parable of Abraham and Isaac, and the example of God the Father, whose Son inherited a crown of thorns and three iron spikes, to prepay the monstrous debt of sin of those in attendance, and their clients, for not just 100 years of dynastic hegemony, but until the end of time. "What profits it that your client inherit the earth, and lose her immortal soul?" With Tutor's sermon orator voice, the rafters would ring.
He gave that Sermon, for practice, to Audrey, and it scared the bejesus out of her. He has to learn to back off.
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