Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family--How Family Members and Their Advisers Preserve Human, Intellectual, and Financial Assets for Generations (Bloomberg) Hardcover – 1 Jun. 2004

James Hughes presents a very inspiring way of thinking about families, and of thinking about wealth. Most importantly, it helped me start to see things from a very long term perspective, which is the exact opposite, of course, of living hand-to-mouth. As well as many practical details, the book outlines a structure for planning the long term security, prosperity and fulfilment of your children, grandchildren and beyond, and thus at the same time creating an extremely empowering context for the things you are doing TODAY. Much recommended.

Reading James E. Hughes Jr.'s book is like sitting down in an easy chair with brass rivets gleaming in burgundy leather, in a trusted old family friend's parlor, to obtain a kindly word of advice. You can almost smell the pipe tobacco and taste the brandy as you read. Hughes gently and wisely guides people who want to preserve their family's wealth on how to think beyond the current fiscal year. This book is genuine and straightforward, with insights gained over many years. Hughes covers creating a family mission statement, instituting a family bank or private trust company, mentoring the next generation, family governance, philanthropy and much more. His most important contribution, however, is the perspective he offers on the human side of the equation. Even the richest families are doomed to squander their inheritances, he cautions, unless they recognize the importance of the intellectual and human development of their family members. We highly recommends this book of sage advice to anyone who hopes to keep it all in the family.

Most financial planners are very talented at finding ways to avoid, reduce and defer taxes. The better planners can also do a wonderful job of steering your money towards investments that will have appropriate risk-rewards characteristics for your preferences. Beyond that, some kind planners will also help you talk through the problems of your drug addict son and alcoholic daughter. But no one, in my experience, will help you think you how to nurture your family in all of its dimensions.Family Wealth breaks through those limitations to suggest that those who head a family should be concerned about all aspects of future generations . . . especially their human, intellectual and social developments . . . as well as being sure that the resources will be there to nurture them. Mr. Hughes suggests a time frame of at least 100 years for this perspective. Otherwise, the global fear that the family will arise from one downtrodden existence to fall down into the same existence in only 3 or 4 generations will turn out to be true.In Family Wealth, Mr. Hughes poses the questions you should be asking about your family and proposes processes to help you turn the answers to those questions into reality.Beyond that, the book informs those who are trustees, advisors and beneficiaries of financial planning what their roles should be with one another and how those roles can be developed through cooperative effort.A hundred years is a long time, so Mr. Hughes will not live long enough to see if his ideas work over several generations. But he has done his best to draw on well-known examples of families who have prospered for a long time.I highly recommend this book to those who want to be responsible to their families, advisors to families, those who provide services to family trusts and those who benefit from inherited money and trusts. Your life will be changed very much for the better!

Bought this because of the ratings - but it disappointed me. 200 pages of how to avoid breakdowns in family relationships and next to nothing on trust law.