New York Last Will And Testament For Other Persons: Fill & Download for Free

Anthony Bourdain left an estate of approximately one million dollars only. How is this possible?Why not?I assume from the way the question is phrased that it seems the amount of approximately $1,000,000 seems too low to the asker. The implication is that the asker believes Bourdain should have lots and lots and lots more money.Personally I don’t know much about last wills and testaments, but realize they can be much more complicated than most people think. Not knowing much about Bourdain or others in the public eye, there can be many reasons why such a presumed low figure is possible, even if an individual earns a multi-million dollar salary per year, at least for the usual millionaire American celebrities. I emphasize though I have no idea what Bourdain’s (or anyone else’s) actual personal income might have been, but I assume that a last will and testament only covers personal and not business, or other legal entity property (like a non-profit, charity, many trusts, etc.) though the individual might be a chief executive, controlling account holder or related in charge of these entities.Quickly off the top of my mind, I think there are two most obvious possibilities, or combinations of these.The person in question could have had a huge amount of debt, large balances with multiple creditors, or extremely high expenses so the money basically evaporated after paying off regular expenses and creditors. Just because someone is a so-called millionaire (making millions of dollars) does not mean that that money stays in the bank for them. Often their jobs or companies have extremely high expenses and they have lots of bills to pay for numerous reasons.The individual could have multiple financial and legal accounts where the majority of his money, assets, and property are in the name of trusts, corporations, non-profits, or other accounts which are not considered his personal assets as far as his legal will goes so bypasses the accounting and statements for the purposes of filing the will.There could be many other reasons, but also that it is more than possible that Bourdain was nowhere as rich as many people assumed he was. My guess is that the corporations he worked with and for paid for many of his expenses, but his actual paycheck or income may have been much smaller than assumed.I looked up an article about the Anthony Bourdain’s filed will. Anthony Bourdain’s will reveals net worth of $1.2M, reports sayThe New York Daily News, Page Six and USA Today report that according to Manhattan Surrogate's Court documents filed Thursday, Bourdain's estate includes $425,000 in savings and cash, $35,000 in brokerage money, $250,000 in personal property and $500,000 in "intangible property including royalties and residuals."Bourdain reportedly listed his estranged wife, Ottavia Busia-Bourdain, as the executor of his estate and left her with all his "personal and household effects," including cars and frequent flier miles, to use "in accordance with what (she) believes to have been my wishes." Bourdain reportedly had a mortgage worth $1.1 million for an unspecified property.Special thanks to Charles Milton Ling for suggested edits!

How many other bestselling authors can you name that have had three of their books (The Blind Side, Moneyball, and The Big Short), in the last seven years, made into films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?His last book came out on March 31, 2014 and was number one on the New York Times Bestseller List for four consecutive weeks. His current book was released two weeks ago and went straight to number two on that list.He writes on timely topics of significance and speaks truth to power. Even his books that sound boring go straight to the top of the most prestigious lists. Hollywood wants everything he writes. I can't think of another non-fiction writer that could be described as more relevant.Take a look at these comments on his latest book from top book reviewers:“Lewis is the ideal teller of [Tversky and Kahneman’s] story… You see his protagonists in three dimensions—deeply likable, but also flawed, just like most of your friends and family.” — David Leonhardt, New York Times Book Review“Lewis has written one hell of a love story.” — Jennifer Senior, New York Times“Fascinating stories about intriguing people.” — Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, The New Yorker“Brilliant… Lewis has given us a spectacular account of two great men who faced up to uncertainty and the limits of human reason.” — William Easterly, Wall Street Journal“Compelling… The Undoing Project is a history of the birth of behavioral economics, but it’s also Lewis’s testament to the power of collaboration.” — Peter Coy, Bloomberg Businessweek“Mind-blowing… [The Undoing Project] will raise doubts about how you personally perceive reality.” — Don Oldenburg, USA Today“Intellectually mesmerizing and inspiring.” — Harper's Bazaar“A fantastic read.” — Jesse Singal, New York Magazine“Lewis [is a] master of the character-driven narrative.” — Charlie Gofen, The National Book Review“Tantalizing and tender… Lewis is an irresistible storyteller and a master at illuminating complicated and fascinating subjects.” — Booklist, starred review

Oh my gosh, Jefferson. That dude deserves his own musical.Let me rephrase the question a bit, “Should we be dismissive of Jefferson and his ideals because of his status as a slave owner?” It turns out that would be grossly unfair to Jefferson, as I’ll explain below, and for reasons that are likely to surprise you.But firstly, being dismissive of Jefferson is a huge disservice to us. Let me illustrate what I mean. How well would you know the following famous individuals after reading these brief biographies:Steve Jobs: Early founder of Apple, but eventually fired from the company for being obsessive. Denied paternity of his own daughter.Martin Luther King Jr.: Serial adulterer. FBI watch list. Murder victim.Michael Jordan: Mediocre minor league baseball player.Thomas Jefferson: Slave owner. Impregnated one of his slaves.How did you feel reading those? What is the problem with focusing only on the negative aspects of these famous figures? For Jordan, you’d miss out on all of his highlight videos and his championship “flu-game”. For MLKJ you wouldn’t know about his “I have a dream” speech or protest marches meant to focus the nation’s attention on injustices in the South. You’d miss Jobs’ stage presence and the thrill of his turn of phrase “…oh, and one more thing.” There is beauty and inspiration in Jefferson’s life. It is a great shame it has gone largely unexplored.But back to the slave owning part. As I mentioned, it is grossly unfair to dismiss Jefferson because of his status as a slave owner. Let’s get to the meat of the case.Fact #1: Jefferson (like Washington, Madison, Monroe) was forced by law to become a slave owner.Yes, you read that correctly. Jefferson had literally no choice in the matter. The short version is that by law he was the exclusive heir of his father’s estate and was forbidden by law from selling or freeing his slaves.History of Virginia ColonyTo understand how this could be, for a moment let’s pretend that the Colony of Virginia is a completely foreign country with a foreign culture and foreign institutions. Let’s try to imagine what it was like.The first thing to realize is that the Colony of Virginia at the time of the Declaration of Independence was the most populous and had the largest economy of all the early Colonies. It was the “California” of the 13 Colonies.England had a vested interest in keeping Virginia loyal to the Crown, so they set up a number of cruel laws to govern the colony that first created a landed aristocracy, and then made that aristocracy dependent on England to perpetuate the cruel laws in order to survive.What were these cruel laws?Estate owners did not have a right to sell their estate or their slaves, not even if they wanted to to pay off debts, etc. ~ Laws of Entail [1]The estate in its entirety must be passed down to the first born son, all of the other children were disenfranchised. ~ Laws of Primogeniture [2]Slave owners were not allowed to free their slaves without permission from the “Governor and Council”, which was basically never granted. [3]This created an extremely static society. As an aristocrat, you may have been in debt up to your eyeballs, but you had 100% assurance that no one could touch your land or your slaves. If you were a son, but not the first born, you got nothing and became a landless laborer. If you were a daughter or mother, you became dependent on the heir for your maintenance. Think Downtown Abbey, but times 100. Free black people? No way. Slaves were locked up in this static society as property, de facto prisoners of the state. And as an estate owner, the only thing standing between you and your debtors, or between you and the division of your estate to all heirs was your allegiance to England.So the first truth is, as the first born, Thomas Jefferson had no choice but to inherit the family estate with no option to sell it, or let it pass to any other family members. As the new estate owner, Jefferson had no right to sell or free his slaves. Under the circumstances, Jefferson became a slave owner by force of law, he had almost no choice in the matter.And for people thinking, “He could have run away!!” Okay, sure, but it’s not so clear what that would have accomplished? It would not have freed his slaves or changed any of the cruel laws of Virginia.Fact #2: Jefferson overthrew these cruel laws at the first opportunity.Once Independence from Great Britain had been declared, Jefferson returned to his home State of Virginia to set about unraveling these cruel laws, and he was very successful. Laws of entail? Gone. [4] Primogeniture? Gone. [5] He eliminated aristocratic privilege and set all heirs on an equal footing. #EqualityAnd the Virginian Aristocrats never forgave him, later saying that the death of Jefferson’s infant son was God’s vengeance for Jefferson taking a wrecking ball to their privileged institutions. [6]Fact #3: It was not so clear how to best help his slaves.Keep in mind that before Independence, that fewer than 1% of blacks in Virginia were free. [7] If you were freed, where would you go? You would have no family to live with, no freed-black village that you could recur to until you got on your feet. Maybe you should escape to the North, but what would a freed black slave even know about the North, much less have the skills to enable successful integration? Keep in mind that slave owners generally didn’t want their slaves reading or writing (see “Twelve Years a Slave”), and most certainly were not filling their heads with ideas on how to succeed as free citizens.People that trivialize this challenge are being grossly unfair to Jefferson and peers and dismissive of the realities of his time. If you can’t sell or free your slaves, that means your slave can’t buy his own liberty. Your slave also can’t pass into the hands of someone that might free him or allow him to purchase his own freedom. That means there are no free blacks anywhere in Virginia. If that’s the case, then how much should a free black be paid as a laborer? Who knows. People never hired them. Where does a free black rent a home? Answer: Nowhere. Want to buy a parcel of land to farm yourself? Too bad, all the land is locked up in these huge estates. If many non-first born white men were disenfranchised, imagine the plight the free blacks!In order to create somewhere for freed blacks to go and for them to build up their own support networks, you first had to change the institutions that froze slaves and land in place, which Jefferson did. Partially as a consequence of his reforms, the number of free blacks went from less than 1% to 7.2% of blacks in Virginia. [7]Fact #4: Jefferson was not really able to free his slaves at death.In 1782 a manumission law was passed making it possible for slave owners to free their slaves in their last will and testament provided that the owner provide them a means for living, etc. Easy peasy. So all you needed to do was not be in too much debt and die and then you could free your slaves. And this is what Washington did when he died in 1799.But Jefferson had a peculiar problem, he was in a lot of debt (much of it inherited, some of it his own) and he died a lot later than Washington, and by that time the laws had changed. In 1806, the laws of Virginia put heavier burdens on owners [8] trying to free their slaves and freed blacks were forced to leave the Commonwealth of Virginia within 12 months of being freed or risk becoming slaves again. #NotFreeAtLast So if you’re a slave and you married and started a family with a slave from an adjacent plantation, then manumission meant you were kicked out of the state and separated from your family. All of this lead Jefferson to lament in 1814 that “the laws do not permit us to turn them loose”.[9] Also remember that Jefferson not only inherited slaves, but also the debts of the estates that he inherited, so if the estate was not able to provide for the non-working age slaves, they could not be freed, which is partially why Jefferson’s remaining slaves were sold to discharge his debts and only the children and family members of Sally Hemings set free.Resting the Case as a Slave OwnerSo to recap, Jefferson had no choice but to inherit his slaves, he did as much as anyone in Virginia to break up the cruel laws that chained slaves to their respective estates and create opportunities for freed blacks to exist and start to thrive. Jefferson ultimately lost the struggle and faced stiffer laws on freeing slaves in Virginia, which is why he couldn’t free all of his own when he died. And for good measure, keep in mind that Jefferson was an aristocrat. His reforms of the Virginia code tore down the privileged class of which he was a member and his family paid dearly as a consequence. His beloved Monticello and all remaining slaves were sold at auction to service his debts the year after his death.Back to the Declaration of IndependenceDid Jefferson mean for the statement “all men are created equal” to extend to black slaves? He most certainly did. The original draft censured the King of Great Britain for waging a “cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere” and keeping “open a market where men should be bought & sold”. Clearly he intended to say that black slaves were men and deserving of equal rights to life, liberty, etc.And for good measure, another dig at His Highness and slavery: “he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce”.Jefferson’s Legacy on EqualityIf you live in the U.S., few men have had more of an impact on your day-to-day right to equal protection than Thomas Jefferson. This is because he successfully championed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and after achieving success in the most prominent state at the time, he supported his acolyte James Madison in lobbying for essentially the same protections to be incorporated in the Bill of Rights. If you enjoy seeing Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Christians alike being equally protected under the law, you should tip your hat to Thomas Jefferson.Short Answer:Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal” in defiance of the prejudicial and compromising institutions that surrounded him and was more successful than almost any man in tearing down those institutions and achieving that vaunted equality for generations to come.Thomas Jefferson: Badass.References:1 & 2: Thomas Jefferson by David Saville Muzzey, pg. 55, snippet below3. ibid, pg. 67 - snippet below.4. ibid, pg. 585. ibid, pg. 596. ibid, pg. 607. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619–1865, New York: Hill and Wang, pp. 73, 77, 818. The Revised Code of the Laws of Virginia: Being A Collection of all Such Acts of the General Assembly, of a Public and Permanent Nature, as are Now in Force (Richmond: Printed by Thomas Ritcher, 1819), pp. 433-436. From here. Snippet below.9. Jefferson, Works (1905), Vol. XI, pp. 416-420, to Edward Coles on August 25, 1814