Thanks. But my 500K estimate isn't totally arbitrary. I set that value because it is a little more than our most highly trained and skilled and educated workers make: the MD specialist. The average salary for them is about $400k, so I figure many of them make more than that, so $500k makes sense. Also the top 1% starts at about $400k, I'd rather err on the high side, so I picked $500k. Now if someone can pick a figure that makes more sense, that has more logic behind it, I am certainly willing to compromise. Maybe it should be a million bucks. Maybe doctor MD's are all ripping us off so maybe it should be less than $400k. Regardless of the exact amount, there should be an amount above which income is taxed at a much higher rate.
I probably haven't made the best argument tonight. It's really not about punishing the very rich, it's about establishing an income level that would create a very nice lifestyle and promote a productive society, while reducing the gap between the ultra rich and the working poor. A definative "maximum wage" would likely be considered "unAmerican", but by having a top income bracket with a much higher tax rate, we set a defacto maximum wage. Sure, under my system, people could make as much money as they wanted to. The guy who makes $10 million would end up with more net after tax money that the guy who only makes $1 million, but no one would make grossly (as in thousands of times) more than the average worker (only tens of times more). I believe that this defacto maximum wage would create a disincentive for people to be greedy and demand more and more money, and thus others would be able to have higher incomes.
It's a matter of if one truely believes that the rich guy earns everything his is paid. I can't imagine someone earning tens of millions of dollars, let alone a billion dollars. I understand that they acquire that money, and that someone had to create that wealth, but I believe that there is a limit to humans ability to produce and that such limit is far below a billion dollars. I recognise that when one person gets paid more than they produce, then someone else gets shafted. Now for someone who truely believes that everyone earns every penny that they make, no more and no less (including con-artists, bankrobbers, etc), then I understand why they would not understand that those at lower wage levels get shafted when those at upper wage levels make more and more money. But surely deep down in peoples heart, they know that Bernie Madoff didn't create any wealth that wouldn't have existed if he didn't exist, and they know that the facebook kid just got lucky with the right idea at the right time with the right name and he happened to have just the right skill set. He didn't actually do billions of dollars worth of work. No one can. Not in 7 years, not in a lifetime.
