Early Retirement Extreme Forums

@Devil's Advocate: x2 and well put (particularly about views being shaped by one's own position. Raise your hand if anyone here would support a straight up wealth tax under any circumstance...?)

That said, as unreasonable as I find alimony (and I do see plenty of similarities in terms of the potential for uneven sacrifices, being punished for frugality, lack of control, role of chance, and having responsibility for, yet lacking input over, someone else's spending, etc)--this is a whole other level of egregious theft. As someone said up thread, marriage is a contract you enter into willingly, and reasonable adults ought to be aware of the attendant risks and responsibilities. On the other hand, there is no contract involved in being born.

The essence of any contract lies in the conditions specified.

The marriage contract is about expectations within the marriage. Not after.

Think about it : the fact that you chose your spouse, and not your parents, is irrelevant.

I would say the two situations are EXACTLY similar.

Also, as I just posted in the Marriage thread, why would the settlement amount be made a function of the higher-earner's income? As with this filial support business, the principle remains : stick it to them as far as it will go.

Incidentally, in the other thread, I noticed that no one actually supported predatory divorce settlements. The heat and dust there was from different aspects of the issue being highlighted by different people : not a direct disagreement on the issue of predatory divorces.

The folks here are basically fair. ERE is built on a basic foundation of fairness : it wouldn't work otherwise. And neither predatory post-marital settlements, nor COMPULSORY parental support, is fair.

It's just that every generalization has exceptions, every issue has two sides. How well we see the other side often depends on our own situation.