Monday, February 27, 2006
Anna, Anna, Anna, Anna -- Anna Nicole...
My personal feeling on the Anna Nicole Smith saga has always been this: if she saw Howard Marshall's shrivelled, 89 year-old pecker even one time, she deserves the entire estate. And, having seen Dark Roots, I think there's quite a fair bit of evidence on her side of the claim. Dad hated the kids, knew what he was doing when he married her, and intended to play "screw the heirs", laughing all the way to the grave.
The Supreme Court will make that decision (or refuse to) tomorrow. However, I think there's a Solomonic solution to the situation, and it would work like this:
The judges confer separately with Anna Nicole and Pierce Marshall, and offer each of them this choice: "Are you willing to split the estate 50/50 with the other party?" The outcome goes like this: if both of them say "Yes", then the estate is split between them, end of the matter. If only one of them says "Yes", then the party who said "No" gets jack shit, and the other party gets everything. Finally, if both say "No", then everything goes to some non-profit cause. It's a nice little prisoner's dilemma solution and, really, the way these things should always be solved when there's a dispute. Once people figured out how the system worked, they'd be more than willing to negotiate and share. (It would work for multi-party suits, to. All the "Yeses" split equally, all the "Noes" take a walk.)
After all, Howard Marshall was a billionaire. Half of that ought to be enough for anybody, even if it is arguable that, if Anna Nicole Smith gets nothing, she's getting from the family the same thing she got from the old man. Screwed.
The Supreme Court will make that decision (or refuse to) tomorrow. However, I think there's a Solomonic solution to the situation, and it would work like this:
The judges confer separately with Anna Nicole and Pierce Marshall, and offer each of them this choice: "Are you willing to split the estate 50/50 with the other party?" The outcome goes like this: if both of them say "Yes", then the estate is split between them, end of the matter. If only one of them says "Yes", then the party who said "No" gets jack shit, and the other party gets everything. Finally, if both say "No", then everything goes to some non-profit cause. It's a nice little prisoner's dilemma solution and, really, the way these things should always be solved when there's a dispute. Once people figured out how the system worked, they'd be more than willing to negotiate and share. (It would work for multi-party suits, to. All the "Yeses" split equally, all the "Noes" take a walk.)
After all, Howard Marshall was a billionaire. Half of that ought to be enough for anybody, even if it is arguable that, if Anna Nicole Smith gets nothing, she's getting from the family the same thing she got from the old man. Screwed.
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