&gt; If my son is lazy and live on my $45B fortune after I pass away, he alone can&#x27;t effect Joe&#x27;s living cost.<p>Yes, he can. For a fairly extreme case, he could expend a substantial fraction of the recurring proceeds generated by the investment of that fortune buying up some good or combination of goods which whose production competes with that of basic necessities that Joe needs in terms of some of the needed production inputs, by so doing he drives up the manufacturing costs of those necessities (and, thus, their market clearing price, by affecting the supply curve for those goods), and increases Joe&#x27;s living costs.