Idea: we cap net worth at 10,000 years of minimum wage. $7.25/hr * 40hr/week * 52 weeks/yr * 10,000 years = $150.8M If you raise MW to $25/hr then a married couple could have $600M net worth. Yes it’s high but once you’ve tied MW to wealth you can adjust.
If healthcare is tied to employment I don’t see why this would present a problem. Also #RCV and big money out of politics.
Because 10000 yrs is freaking reasonable?
Only $150 million? That’s cruel!! That would deny the purchase of 6th and 7th homes as well as yachts the size of football fields. How dare you, sir?!
This way when people cry about it you can just be like “oh yeah and explain how you deserve more than 10000 years worth of wealth”
Obviously then you would need to implement all of the regulations to actually cap wealth, like making it illegal to use stock as collateral for loans.
Incentivizes rich people to raise MW and includes the effect of inflation (don’t have to write a dollar amount into law beyond the MW value)
Also helps contextualize large amounts of wealth to low info voters. Everyone can convince themselves they can conceive of X years of wages.
Totally fair. The specific number is up for debate, and obviously we want to maximize the MW number and minimize the years number to the extent it’s feasible.
Split the difference at 5000?
A rising tide lifts all boats.
And peg minimum wage to median income so it rises with the economy—rich and poor alike.
Not yet .
Love this. But I would say only take it times 50 weeks. Everybody deserves at least two weeks of vacation.
Or cap net worth at 125 years (considered by many to be the longest possible life span) of minimum wage. Then you get: $7.25/hr * 40 hr/wk * 52 wks/yr * 125 yrs = $1,885,000 M At MW of $25/hr, a couple could have $13 M. I think this is a more reasonable value and easier for people to relate to.
hah, this is brilliant the main takeaway is that the plutocrats have taken their abuse to such preposterous levels that even preposterous "solutions" like this are far more reasonable than the current state of things
Is it high?
Really cool idea—I think it’s hard to directly tax wealth without causing massive selling pressure… we’ll really need a cap like this if/when the oligarchs figure out how to cheat death
That’s brilliant
Good idea! Gives the oligarchs incentive to look after the workers. And, it would piss them off 👍👍
Money, the root of all evil.
Politicians felt it ok to set a ridiculously low cap on income taxable for FICA and provide an annual adjustment that lags real inflation. So I want a fixed cap on wealth at $50mn per couple. The rest goes to taxes @100%. It provides incentive for Los Ricos to keep inflation low.
I've always thought we should tie the highest wage a company pays to the lowest wage it pays. The CEO can make 200 times the lowest paid employees.
I like it. But only 1000 years. It’s longer than almost any Empire and your net worth shouldn’t be able to exceed the possible length of use of the currency.
1,000 or 10,000, both are looking like they'll far exceed humanity, at least in the sense that money will mean anything.
If everyone could gain this much wealth everyone would have access to capital. If everyone has access to capital then capitalism would die. Let's go.
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I have had years of my life where I enjoyed a good income. Right now by choice, I make a middle class income. I can save. I can have things. I am not rich but I am happy. I do not think a socialistic way of thinking is bad.
and...then what? I'm not arguing with your math, but there's no endgame here. If I'm worth $152 mm...who gets the $1.2 mm I (presumably) forfeit? And, if we're in the US, what legal authority under the Constitution gives gov't this power?
The excess funds would go to infrastructure, research, schools, foreign aid ect. Congress can change the purse. My question is, why do we still allow private schools for masters degrees and below?
I don't know that Congress has authority to levy a tax in this manner. (I'm not sure it doesn't, either, not really my area of expertise but i see arguments both ways)
Pretty well any social issue could be addressed purely through tax law and tax policy. In this case it should be possible to get rich, but much harder to stay rich. Instead we're stuck in a global race to the taxation bottom, for many nations there's no foreseeable way out, just ask Great Britain.
That would go a long way toward stemming the ruinous greed from our super rich. These people are badly addicted to money and hurt other people so they can hoard more.