From: wood@eisley.akita.com (Ken Wood)
Newsgroups: pnw.general
Subject: Re: government still at large (was Re: FDA still at large)
Summary: Limits on worth.
Keywords: rich money wealth poor work economics
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 02:56:47 PDT
Organization: Mos Eisley Spaceport BBS

alpinist@eskimo.celestial.com (David Butler) writes:

> In article <7yXNoB1w165w@eisley.akita.com> wood@eisley.akita.com (Ken Wood) w
> > If you want to encourage innovation you need an
> >open system with no limits.  Otherwise once somebody reaches the limit 
> >why not stop and relax?  Of course you can make it a diminishing return 
> >as you get higher just as long as it doesn't get to the point where it's 
> >no longer worth it.  Well that's my $0.02, see ya'll later.
> >     Ken Wood
> 
>   I missed your last comment here in my first response to this post.
> Yeah, that's a problem limiting income and still encouraging individual
> incentive for innovation and production.  But there are limits to what
> a person can practically own at the higher ends.  When someone is worth
> hundreds of millions (not to mention billions) of dollars they have
> such a consumption that it takes millions of working stiffs to support
> their lifestyles.  One idea I have is to make a limit of say that top

     Well I agree here for the most part, but I think part of it also 
depends on the sourse of the wealth and whether it was earned or 
inherited or both.

> CEOs can only earn 6 times the starting wage of their company.  That way
> they can still continue to get a better income if their company does good,
> but the average worker also must get an increase in salary in order for
> the boss to do so.  (I also think that the percentage increase in wages
> for Congress and the Pres should be matched by equal increases in the
> minimum wage - it pisses me off when the increase their own wage by a
> full half again as much and vote not to increase minimum wage by a dime)
> For those whos income isn't affected by a company and workers below them

     Well I was going to say this was not a bad idea till I thought about 
it and then I had to start over.  It would be economic death.  This would 
limit the growth of a company ( sell too many products and you have to 
raise wages, at some point you are no longer competative so you top out 
).  It would increase prices ( when enough companies topped out then 
prices would go up again ).  If a company had public stock the first time 
it went too high the whole system would collapse.  And it would limit
people with successful companies from branching out into buisnesses that 
had lower skilled/paid workers.  It sounded good at first but it would
kill most economies real fast.  Now the part about the politicians might 
work ( I still see some problems ) but that's a different issue.

> I think that high wages (definitely anyone making over a mil a year - though
> personally I think it should start at 6 figures) should get the heck taxed
> out of them with increasingly incredibly high percentages so that people
> still can continue to make a higher wage no matter how much they have
> but it gets down to a slower and slower rate and the government (the public)
> gets increasingly better returns.
>    The economy as a whole does much better if a million people have decent
> paying jobs and spend that regularly on common luxuries (cars, appliances,
> VCRs, computers, boats, golf clubs, etc) than if one person has a million
> dollars and makes a few large purchases ( a mansion, yacht, trump shuttle,
> etc)
> 

     Your correct about the greater distribution of wealth being better 
for the economy, but setting the tax rate too high will still stifle the 
economy.  As I said before I like a progressive income tax but the top 
end can't be too high or people will stop trying.  That or spend too much
time looking for loopholes and dodges.  Also it would encourage wealthy 
people, and their capitol, to go elsewhere.  Back when the US was the 
only game in town a tax rate of 75% or more could work, but today it 
would really gut us.  Anybody who could would move their buisness to 
another country.  You think the unemployment is bad now, this would be 
unbelievable.  What I would suggest is a progressive tax with a top end 
of maybe 50% (  even that is probably too high, maybe you could go that 
high on anybody over 1 billion ).  And have no limits on CEO profit.  I 
can't see any other alternatives that work.  



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