Would a wealth cap save the global economy?

I personally agree with a cap on wealth. There's no reason for one person to have $50billion in liquid assets. Where do you draw the line? What if one person were to make/have so much money they actually became a threat to the government. Once they hit a certain point in assets all it becomes more is a competition for power in the rich peeps club. They will never stop trying to get more unless someone steps in and makes them. Take away their money. 1Billion is enough for one man, make him give the rest to the poor.

Originally posted by pieman

there is a finite amount of resources in the world at any given time, the only way for the present poor to gain more is to either make it and keep it or take the resources already in existence. which do you prefer?

Yes there our finite resources in the world, but we will never ever exhaust them. Take Africa for example, they have vast amounts of coal, oil, farmland, lumber, water, diamonds etc. Why is much of the continent still poverty stricken and unindustrialized? It is not for lack of resources, it is a lack of thinking on the part of the people, the politicians

thinking does not make yu rich

I would like to see anyone get rich without thinking.

exploitation of the abilities of others makes you rich.

Utilizing peoples abilities to bring your product to life is not exploitation in the way that you mean the word. Without welders, their would be no pipelines. Without construction workers, their would be no skyscrapers, highways etc. Without farmers, their would be much much less food. Without miners, we wouldn't have much of anything we have today. Is that what you call exploitation?

Would you call the employer that I used to work for exploiting my ability to weld a bad thing? Would you call a cashier exploited for their ability to use a cash till? Well I made alot of money doing both at one point in my life and I would never see it as a bad thing.

almost every 1st world country operates trade restrictions, these restrictions amount to a formalised policy to restrict the wealth and welfare of the third world.

Absolutely agree with this statement. That is why we need actual free trade. Farmers in africa would love to sell their product to North America but because of the 20% import tariff they cannot compete. Mean while these protectionist policies drive up food prices.

Originally posted by Cool Hand Luke

Originally posted by apacheman

I'm not talking about income, I'm talking about wealth. There's a huge difference.

Please specify how you consider income not to be a form of wealth.
Here's a fairly simple explanation:

The plain truth is it would take you ten years to become a millionaire earning a 100 grand a year- That's if you didn't spend a dime in those ten years!!!

Let's face it, as a business owner most of your net worth, or wealth is tied up in your business. That means your wealth is measured by the value of your business. Wealth Depot is dedicated to helping you build the value of your business, and thereby creating wealth.

Many assume that wealth comes from saving, disciplined investing, foregoing current pleasures in life so that savings will lead to wealth. This is all true, however it takes many years, and in some cases a lifetime or more to achieve wealth in this manner. This is the technique that the investment community has duped the average wage earner into thinking.

Consider this: The selling price of many service firms can be equaled to about one year's gross revenue. If you grew your firm's sales by $250,000 last year you have increased you net worth by a quarter of a million dollars. That certainly beats foregoing dinner with your family or an annual vacation just so you can invest the money which may or may not grow over time.

Obviously, you want to build wealth, but you also want to create current income in the process. Let's take a look at the difference between wealth and income.

Wealth
Long Term Store of Value can provide Income as a Return on Investment
Contributes Significantly to Net Worth
Allows Freedom – Both Financially
and personally
Allows a legacy to be passed on to heirs
Wealth is long-term.

Income

Could contribute to wealth if savings occur
If any Money is left after paying expenses,could provide short term freedom
Usually used to pay current living expenses
Money received in a period
Income is short-term.

I'm also not talking about communism:

Oh yes you are albeit a limited form of it. People should stop making money "for the good of the community" is your suggestion. Tell me how many jobs and products would we have available to us were it not for the Henry Ford's, General Electrics, Steve Jobs, Standard Oil, Bill Gates etc.. The only way these companies remain successful is by making profit and using that profit to continue to invest and innovate better products. With out people voluntarily buying their products they would not earn a single dime.

If it were not for most of those esteemed gentlemen and companies we would have more jobs, not fewer, as they all worked assiduously to reduce the number of people required to do a job: that's called increased productivity. On one hand that's good for the company and the economy, also the remaining workers if the increased profits are shared with them. On the other hand, if you use that increased productivity to drive your competitors out of business, that's only good for you, not the economy overall, nor the workers.

I'm talking about, well, ethical capitalism, or perhaps mature-stage capitalism.

What is unethical with capitalism? I create a product, if people want it, I and the consumer of that product both benefit otherwise the transaction would not happen.

A reasonable limit on wealth would allow "trickle-down" to actually function:

What would be a "reasonable" limit? There is a reason why these people are successful. They have the ability to turn their vision into reality benefitting all of us within reality. If it doesn't benefit us, we don't buy it.

a living wage for workers could easily be accomodated

What is a living wage? How are wages determined in the first place? Wages are determined by ability and skill and the supply and demand of that skill. A cashier is not going to be paid as much as an engineer because one requires much more skill than the other and their are much fewer people who have the knowledge on how to be an engineer than on how to be a cashier. If a business owner sees that one of his workers ability to get things done, they will give him a raise or a promotion because they recognize the workers skill and ability. If a worker does not complete the task that the employer is paying the employee to do, he has a right to fire him.

There are other, greater, motivating factors than more profits and greater wealth accumulation: lots of folks aren't motivated by money. Only selfish and greedy people would stagnate, science and such would leap.

I'll tell you what, the next time you go to work, tell your employer that you will work for free because money does not motivate you. Then come back to ATS and tell us how much further you have moved in your life to gaining what you want.

A reasonable limit is one billion dollars: what can you possibly need more for, save ego gratification?

A living wage is the floor that meets the requirements of living without having to do without necessities and without fear of running afoul of the law simply due to poverty. The state demands that you must have auto insurance if you drive to work. If your employer won't pay enough for you to do so, then you must either break the law or do without something else. A sub-living wage is a disguised subsidy to the business community: if the government needs to pay for a citizen's living and medical expenses because businesses refuse to pay well enough for a citizen working two jobs to pay for those necessities themselves, then the business is in effect being subsidized by the other taxpayers.

Just because there is a living wage floor doesn't mean there won't be jobs that pay more. But just what do stockbrokers do that makes them worthy of being paid tens and hundreds of millions per year? Obviously, they produce no tangible product at all, and most of their "advice" is not only wrong, but designed to sucker people into buying over-valued (by the stockbrokers) financial instruments. Such men comprise most of the new billionaires.

If you think money is the only motivator, how sad for you: there are many Mother Theresa's in the world who give gladly for no money.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by apacheman]

Originally posted by apacheman
reply to post by tide88

 

Bill Gates is much more of a ruthless businessman than a good engineer, his ruthlessness stifled many good products that Microsoft would otherwise have had to compete with to the betterment of both (isn't that a capitalist truism?). It also got him sued multiple times for unfair business practices. Microsoft's products really suck because of him, they've retarded better software development and adoption. Have you ever used an Amiga or Atari?

To say that Microsoft was in an "infantile stage" when he made his first billion is simply preposterous, please try to make your arguments rationally supportable by facts.

In a population of some 350 million people, high IQs are, in fact, a dime a dozen: ask any corporate recruiter. And as history has shown uncountable times, "irreplaceable" people have been and are replaced on a daily basis throughout the country.

Both Gates and Jobs didn't do their thing all by themselves: each had an army of talented people behind them who were more directly responsible for the innovations, ideas, development and production than they were. And each was and is replaceable.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by apacheman]

He made his first billion in 1986, so yes microsoft was in its infintile stage compared to where it is today, technologically speaking, that is. (should of specified, but I thought you would get it seeing I was talking about advances in technology that these specific people create. Look at the advances that microsoft has made since then. Not claiming there wasn't misstep or bad decisions by Gates but I am saying computers would not be the same without him at the helm of Microsoft.

The big break came in 1980 when an agreement was signed to provide the operating system that became known as MS-DOS, for IBM's new personal computer. In a contractual masterstroke, Microsoft was allowed to licence the operating system to other manufacturers, spawning an industry of "IBM-compatible" personal computers which depended on Microsoft's operating system. That fuelled further growth, prompting the company to float in 1986, raising $61m. Now a multi-millionaire, Allen had already stepped back from the frontline. But Gates continued to play the key role in the company's growth, with his vision for networked computers proving central to Microsoft's success.

And his business savvy and ruthlessness as well as ability to run a company has made the company the success it is. Not everyone with an IQ that high has the ability to run a company and do what he did at microsoft. ANd to say an IQ of 170 is a dime a dozen is completely untrue. Seeing that only 1% of the worlds population have an iq of 135 or higher, I would harldy say that constitutes a dime a dozen number.
Apacheman please try to make your arguments rationally supportable by facts. . A dime a dozen.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by tide88]

Originally posted by Techsnow
I personally agree with a cap on wealth. There's no reason for one person to have $50billion in liquid assets. Where do you draw the line? What if one person were to make/have so much money they actually became a threat to the government. Once they hit a certain point in assets all it becomes more is a competition for power in the rich peeps club. They will never stop trying to get more unless someone steps in and makes them. Take away their money. 1Billion is enough for one man, make him give the rest to the poor.

Now I see what you and the OP are proposing. You want something for nothing. You want to steal other peoples wealth at the point of a gun (government) so that you don't have to lift a finger. Let me tell you how people make money: they earn it.

My father had $100 dollars to his name, eight kids, and a car that barely ran. Today he owns two houses, two brand new vehicles, and is looking to build his own house. How could he possibly have done that you ask? He earned it. He worked in the fields of Texas making a very little amount of money that could barely feed the family. Over time he saved and bought a better vehicle and enough food to keep the family happy. My mother stayed at home and taught the kids. They moved to Canada when they accumulated enough wealth to rent a bigger house and began work as a welder. My mother also began to work in health care and the kids all got jobs.

We all earned our wealth. We didn't stick our hands out expecting to play on people's emotions so that we could get away with doing nothing to earn their charity.

Let's say I would someday become a billionaire by making a revolutionary new product. It is a product that I created and created a business around selling and delivering that product. Because of my successful business millions of people have jobs, millions of people invest in my company because it is successful, millions of peoples retirement is based on the performance of my company, and millions of people value the product because it has made their life better.

At what point should I have to be given the yank because too many people value what my company does?

Originally posted by Cool Hand Luke
Yes there our finite resources in the world, but we will never ever exhaust them.

so there is a limited amount but we'll never run out, how do you work that little contradiction out?

Take Africa for example, they have vast amounts of coal, oil, farmland, lumber, water, diamonds etc. Why is much of the continent still poverty stricken and unindustrialized? It is not for lack of resources, it is a lack of thinking on the part of the people, the politicians

"thinking" is a rather simplified description of the process of attempting to release the liquidity of mineral assets in the face of the IMF, world bank and various G numbers.

I would like to see anyone get rich without thinking.

eh....lottery? aristocracy? george w bush? thinking is not a requirement of wealth!!!

Utilizing peoples abilities to bring your product to life is not exploitation in the way that you mean the word.

please don't tell me what i mean, my point is simply that there is no way for one person to generate enough on their own to become wealthy, for one man to be rich, another must be made poor. it's a simple truth, i mean nothing but what i say.

i'm glad we agree on the injustice of trade restrictions.

Originally posted by apacheman

A reasonable limit is one billion dollars: what can you possibly need more for, save ego gratification?

Tell me what do you think these billionaires do with their money? I'll help you out. They invest in companies that are worth investment creating jobs. They buy yachts that create many jobs. They buy ferraris, porches, etc.. all giving people jobs. They buy extravagant mansions that someone has to build creating more jobs. They buy private planes creating more jobs. You should want everyone to be as a successful as possible. Why put a cap on success? These multi billionaires like for example Richard Branson, are beginning to invest in private space travel so that us regular joes may one day be able to set foot on the moon.

A living wage is the floor that meets the requirements of living without having to do without necessities and without fear of running afoul of the law simply due to poverty.

Tell me which jobs in North America are below the "living" wage? Then ask yourself why are jobs so low paying?

The state demands that you must have auto insurance if you drive to work. If your employer won't pay enough for you to do so, then you must either break the law or do without something else.

I have got another solution: ride a bike. Their are many people who earn enough to buy 5 cars but choose not to buy one. Why? Because they use transit, taxi, bicycles, walk, etc.

A sub-living wage is a disguised subsidy to the business community:

What? Listen if those wages are so terrible, why do people line up around the block to try and get them. Even in the worst of the worst "sweatshops" in asia have lineups of people trying to get a job their. If nobody was willing to work for those wages, those wages would instantly increase.

if the government needs to pay for a citizen's living and medical expenses because businesses refuse to pay well enough for a citizen working two jobs to pay for those necessities themselves, then the business is in effect being subsidized by the other taxpayers.

Who says the government needs to pay for anything like health care or "living"?

Just because there is a living wage floor doesn't mean there won't be jobs that pay more. But just what do stockbrokers do that makes them worthy of being paid tens and hundreds of millions per year?

Maybe you should ask one of them or maybe try being one yourself. They shoulder a huge responsibility of other peoples money. If they lose money they lose their job. If helps people make millions or billions more, he will make a substantial amount.

If you think money is the only motivator, how sad for you: there are many Mother Theresa's in this world

Mother Theresa worshipped death. If it wasn't for suffering she would have had to get a real job. Their is nothing she loved more than human suffering, she said so herself many times. Her only happiness was to stand over the rotting corpses of what used to be human. She denied food and aid many times to people in her beloved death camps because suffering was a sign of god.

What we need is alot less mother theresa's and alot more Henry Fords

Originally posted by pieman

so there is a limited amount but we'll never run out, how do you work that little contradiction out?

I am saying that we will never completely exhaust the earth of things like oil, copper, iron, coal, uranium, concrete etc... Why because there is so much of it and the by the time we ever even get any where near exhausting these things we will have found a replacement.

"thinking" is a rather simplified description of the process of attempting to release the liquidity of mineral assets in the face of the IMF, world bank and various G numbers.

There is no doubt about the world governments untold harm that they have committed on these countries with their rules and regulations and so forth that have stopped a number of people from selling their products on the world market. It is clear that many of these politicians in these countries have given up thinking along time ago but it is the people who support these non thinking entities and bring them their own doom.

eh....lottery? aristocracy? george w bush? thinking is not a requirement of wealth!!!

Thinking is a requirement to make money, but not to receive it.

please don't tell me what i mean, my point is simply that there is no way for one person to generate enough on their own to become wealthy, for one man to be rich, another must be made poor. it's a simple truth, i mean nothing but what i say.

You have just repeated one of the biggest lies ever about capitalism. You think that wealth is a zero sum game. Tell me how many people did Henry Ford steal from to make his fortune? Answer is 0. He created a new product that people valued. He didn't take any one's money away. People traded their dollars for his program because they wanted the program more than the dollars they spent on it. In the process he created millions of jobs, buildings, factories etc.. ie NEW WEALTH.

America was the first country in the world to use the phrase "make money." It was the first country where that was possible for someone with an idea using their own ability to trade with others with things they valued with out the men with guns (government) to take it away from him and distribute it as they saw fit. America was the first nation where men were free to trade with each other and keep their own work.

i'm glad we agree on the injustice of trade restrictions.

And yet you believe in restricting what people earn. That is a contradiction that I cannot get over.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by Cool Hand Luke]

Cool Hand you forgot one thing. I love how apache talks about how ruthless Bill Gates is. Well how about the 58 Billion he has given to charity. Not to mention the 30+ billion Warren Buffett has given too. How about Boone Pickens 700+ million he has given. These are just a few examples. These billionaires are the ones who are helping fight famine and disease throughout the world. What do you think would happen if you capped them at 1 billion. Think of all the people that would suffer. To get an idea of what billionaires give to charity google billionaires and charity. Thats a great idea OP. Lets put a cap on billionaires, the most charitable people in the world. If that 58 billion that gates gave to charity was distributed, you would see less the 1% of 1% go to charity. This wealth cap is a rediculous idea!

[edit on 25-1-2009 by tide88]

OP has a point but his ideas are incomplete.

first, to adress some issues.

1. while I am not 100% sure, I belive that he may be talking about elements of socialism. socialism and comunism are two diferent ideas. also, lets not asume that capatalism is perfect here nor that socialism, or communism are truly bad. they have been given a bad rap due to them being corupted. it's simply a matter of seperating the coruptive principles out and fusing them with (not replacing) capitalism.

2. yes, AIG is a wonderful company. so wonderful that they give themselves million dolar bonuses after BORROWING money from the goverment (AKA: our tax dolars). true, many DO give to charity. good for them. but also note that they keep much more than they donate.

3. ever heard of the Top Down model of public policy making? the rich control the media (and therfor, public opinion) and the politicians to manipulate the law and block ones they dislike. in other words, the middle class dosn't decide s***. we are nothing but puppets, even WITH elections (ok, you can choose this rich guy, or this rich guy. now choose!) this is why we are in such deep s*** right now.

4. finaly, many billionares don't make most of their money from "hard work". they do it through stocks and other means.

now to adress the holes in the argument.

inovation stagnentation. this would happen, and while many COULD take the place of one who quits, wether this would happen or not is iffy. not to mention, they DO earn some of that money, but as stated, there is a diference between wealth and salary (someone else used the word "income" instead of wage or salary. thats the cause of the confusion) wealth encompases all money earned while salary only deals with wages.

that is why "wealth" needs to be difined better. wealth should encompass all items of value, property, and anything else that could be sold, or required money to build.

as to fixing the "they earned it and inovation would die" problem. OP didn't set proper limits. we still need SOME aspects of capitalism. rather than an absolute cap, it should be a yearly one.

for example, lets say the cap is one million. that means that a single person can't earn, spend, or recieve more wealth than 1 million THAT YEAR. they can SAVEUP as much as they want. the wealth they earn from the previous year does not apply to next year. in other words, the counter is reset to zero and they get to keep what they earned the previous year without concequences. they just can't get more than 1 million in that period of time.

if they do reach the limit, then they must let the wealth trickle down or give it to charity. also, there would be exceptions in concern to loteries and contests, and maybe to capital (that already exists. expansions still apply)

the only problem is getteng the elite in washington to go for this....pffft HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA! maybe after it's passes, wh'll see pink and purple pokadotted elephants flying through the sky!

It's comical that people in this thread are advocating no cap by arguing that Bill G would have quit Microsoft thereby damaging market growth and regional prosperity.

The man was and still is a workaholic.

I was a programmer at Microsoft for a couple years. So I can say with some clarity many of the more popular products weren't Bill's ideas. While I admit Bill was a smart guy, and a fine engineer to boot, his savvy was (1) trend prediction, (2) he understood how to promote a highly competitive internal business culture, and (3) the man was utterly ruthless. If the US instituted a wealth cap Bill wouldn't have quit. What's more likely is he would have worked out a way to to consume the money at a rate so his net worth would indefinitely sit at the cap. Also, seeing as how Microsoft's financial team is adept at avoiding corporate taxation (i.e. the way MS uses overseas operations, through Ireland HQ, to skirt reporting total gross earned income) I'm nearly certain Bill would devise a way to game the system and ultimately avoid the wealth cap.

Originally posted by RRconservative
So if I reach the wealth cap in 3 months....does that mean I can take a 9 month vacation?

When you punish productivity...productivity will decrease.

If productivity is increasing the ratio of wealth earned by other nations / international organizations at cost to the US, then who cares about decrease in productivity? Reclamation of wealth is probably a better short term answer than letting money continually seep out through tax havens to foreign nationals. I don't doubt it would have a deleterious effect in the short term, but until monetary globalization & world unification is achieved, making taxes truly an unavoidable reality, the United States will more than likely have to resort to these sorts of short-term corrective measures.

It's either that or war, subjugating another government and claiming their resources. Your pick.

The world has finite stuff.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bf10108d370b.jpg[/atsimg]
(source and the full article)

Money is one of them. To not regulate the flow of that money, especially, at the macro level is, geopolitically speaking, foolish.

To be honest, unregulated personal wealth is a tertiary problem in the grand scheme of things. Corporate wealth is much more concerning.

In the here and now international companies wield as much power as foreign governments. When a company's yearly gross income exceeds that of a 3rd world nations GDP, the company is no longer a business it's a country without borders. I see no reason why the US should treat these entities any different than how we treat potentially hostile foreign nations. If the leaders of these organizations refuse to play ball, our military / intelligence agencies should seize their assets and insert new management.

Money is about balance of power and a means of resource allocation.

Wealth distribution, especially at the macro-scale, very much follows a mode of moral reasoning. At the macro-scale an unregulated monetary system is a detriment to society and should not replace actual human value judgments.

[edit on 13-6-2009 by Xtraeme]

Ecology - from the Greek meaning "the study of the household". Ecologists are the scientists who study all living things and learn their relation to each other and the biosphere.

Economy - from the Greek meaning "the running of the household". Economists are the gamblers who shift money and power around without knowing or caring what it does to the biosphere we are part of.

A Science News study concluded that economists have a lower average of correct predictions than bookies do. How can we run our planet without studying how it works? Isn't it time we consulted with ecologists before economists run our planet into the ground?

"Money is power, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"

Progressive taxation has never worked. As they say "them with the gold makes the rules". The problem has long been that we have allowed economists, financiers and money to run our world without their knowing or caring about how the world works. Their religion of the "Free Market" has not, cannot and will not fix the world. How can they call it Social Darwinism when there is an unnatural, slanted playing field where the super-rich control the market itself through central banks and corporations? If nature can be said to be God's art, we have bookies doing heart surgery. In a biblical way, we have left things up to Mammon instead of to God.

Nature caps the amount of resources any organism can hoard to the amount it can personally defend. Money subverts this natural process, allowing endless resource and power concentration. Society has never been able to brake money-power concentration through rigged, loophole filled taxation, by following voodoo economist's predictions or by war. If we controlled money-power concentration the way moneyless nature intended, we would cap personal net worth, and globally to prevent capital flight. But how can We the People do this without involving easily compromised politicians?

A cap on wealth/power could be achieved direct democratically by fraud-free yearly referendum. The Swiss formula for success is the secure referendum as opposed to California's fraudulent referendums: ni4d.us... It gives them one of the highest per capita incomes in the world despite having few natural resources, no wars in over 150 years despite being surrounded by warring nations, no boom and bust economy, the best health care and education, few immigration problems and a healthy environment.

We could decide in a direct democratic way that with a net worth of say 10 million one can have all one desires by renting instead of buying. We could rent mansions, jets, yachts, etc. with the added benefit of providing employment to those that maintain them without our having to bear these and other costs of ownership. No one needs any more. Having too much money leads to disastrous power concentration resulting in a shift of resources toward war profiteering, decreased social spending, infrastructure decay, poverty, disease, famine, ignorance, environmental destruction, illegal immigration and so on. All to enrich the 2% of the population that drunk on greed and power, proposes we grow ourselves out of poverty to avoid having to share.

We could decide that any personal net worth above the wealth cap should have to be given away to other individuals and be counted on the recipient's wealth cap determination. That these excesses would not be given to organizations or governments of any kind to prevent extreme concentrations of wealth and power in any institution. In fact, the net worth of all institutions, religions, governments, parties, armies and other organizations should be spread among their members and counted in their personal net worth determination.

The result of a wealth cap would be automatic wealth redistribution by the rich themselves as required by the people, and a brake on imperialistic concentrations of power. Poverty would disappear. People could use their new found wealth to pay for infrastructure directly. The need for taxes would wane. Politicians would only exist to carry out the will of the people as expressed in frequent and secure referendums like the Swiss have. And former super rich, maybe even the Koch Brothers, would be able to join humankind and walk among us without fear as cherished people's philantropists.

To humanely address the vital issue of overpopulation that is causing resource depletion, global warming, pollution, species extinctions, immigration, plagues, famine, crime, war, etc., by popularly mandated referendum, the world's rich could give a money incentive for people to have fewer children. The lower the global birth rate, the greater the share of wealth cap excesses from a tiny super-rich minority each person would enjoy. This is a far preferable way to lower human populations than letting nature take it's course and lowering our populations by war, crime, disease, famine and other ways characteristic of beasts, not humans.

With a cap on wealth or resource hoarding, power is naturally limited. This is nature's way of achieving a sustainable ecosystem that allows for competition, adaptation and natural selection. A natural system that benefits the most members of every species. In human terms, a system of government that has the best of direct democratic capitalism and socialism without allowing destructive extreme concentration of wealth/power and overpopulation.

reply to post by BlackOps719


Communism? Well, what about 85 % of the wealth being in the hands of a minority? I guess communism is bit better than slavery! If you want to see WORKING models of capitalism+socialism working fine, look no further than Norway, Sweden, Finland. The highest standard of life for everyone in the end leads to a more educated society, more productivity and a better society.

“maximum wage”

Do a search we are still under this law to this day, but the percentage has changed.



In April 1942, just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt called on Congress to enact a 100 percent top federal income tax rate, effectively a “maximum wage”. FDR, a wealthy man himself, believed that no American should be pocketing over $25,000 per year after taxes, a sum equivalent to more than $300,000 today.

thurmanhubbard.com...

So when the President says he wants IRS Tax Reform
I believe this is the direction they are aiming at.

So in my opinion this idea has been in affect since 1942 and failed.
Another failure is we fought Communism for the better part of my life,
but we need a Communist Country to buy our bonds?
We lost the cold war!
So our current situation is spitting on the Vets of
The Koren War
The Vietnam War
The Cold War
And once we needed Communist Backing of our economy,
we had to change the name of the enemy!

No.

People should be able to prosper and enjoy life as much as they want and can earn.
The governments that WE elect should use the money they take from us more wisely.
Instead of being destructive, how about a constructive policy.

reply to post by Nastradamus

I agree. If I can sucker people into giving me all their wealth. Then I've earned it. It doesn't matter if they're borderline morons. I should be able to abuse people as much as I want, especially when those people allow me to abuse them. Granted I've inherited most of my money (hedge fund investments). Regardless, I'll be damned if I'm going to give it away to society's dregs. Winner takes all. Thanks for supporting me.