Gold Star Economy

Anonymous: The answer is yes. Even Hamas has now agreed, provided Israel gives up all their occupied Palestinian land (which I doubt they will ever do).

I saw somewhere today that the CEO of Exxon has been given a 400 million dollar golden parachute. This is on top of the 50 million he received in compensation last year. I don't care what he did, these are utterly absurd compensations. Of course all of the CEO's of major corporations make these truly big bucks. The top honchos at Disney I'm sure probably make somewhere around 100 million per year, maybe more. You might think they could take a bit less and maybe lower their prices for all the children they lure into their clutches each year. Then there are people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and such, who count their money in billions rather than mere millions. Quite frankly, I don't understand this, nor do I believe it has any contact whatsoever with reality. First of all, what does one do with, say, 100 million dollars a year? Could anyone really spend that much even if they tried? And if so, what could they spend it on that would be in any way other than conspicuous consumption (bigger mansions, bigger yachts, expensive cars, drunken orgies, etc.)? Those who make this kind of money seemingly just can't get enough. Think of people like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. They have so much money they couldn't pssibly spend it all but they go right on making more commercials and more and more money. What do they do with it all? Oh, I know, they give to charity and set up foundations, and support causes and all that. And I'm sure that for most of them these are noble motives (but they still must result in enormous tax breaks). Don't misunderstand, I'm not criticizing these individuals for what they are doing. After all, that's the way the system works. I just think the system sort of stinks. Let me make some suggestions.

Do you remember when you were in grade school and you used to get gold stars (maybe I'm the only one old enough to remember this). That is, if you brushed your teeth every day, or read enough books, or learned your penmanship, or whatever, the teacher would give you a gold star. There was a big cardboard disply where you could see your gold stars and compare them with everyone else's. And you could be really proud if you had more gold stars than anyone else.

Why should we not institute a similar practice for those who succeed in making so much money they don't know what to do with it? I don't know how much money one needs to have enough, but it is clear that many nowadays have more than enough. Just for the sake of the argument, let's say that 50 million a year is enough (I think this is more than generous). For every 50 million more they get a gold star and the general fund of the United States gets the money. Then there could be an elected high-powered group that would decide how the money would be spent. Let's say they decided to spend it on some project having to do with stem cell research. They could make it public and say, "this valuable research is being made possible by the fantastic success of Joe Blow." That way Joe Blow would get his reward, be famous and appreciated, and, because he has so damn much money he wouldn't even know the difference.

Similarly, how much money does a billionare need? It seems to me that once someone has a billion dollars that ought to be enough. For every billion more (or even every 100 million more) they get a gold star and their surplus money goes toward the public good. I know, I know, Bill Gates and some of the others actually do donate large sums to different projects, and I certainly appreciate the fact that they do so. But with such huge sums of money why should how it is used be left up to the whims of individuals? If Bill Gates was allowed to maintain a billion dollar bank account do you think he would really miss all of those other billions? We could over time make it even more rewarding to produce money for the public good than just to make it for the sake of making more.

This gold star system would enable a society to maintain its capitalistic motivations while at the same time providing more for the needs of the less fortunate. It would not eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor but it would certainly make it less offensive and destructive. Maybe we could even fix the potholes on my country road: "These potholes were fixed due to the fantastic ceative and entrepreneural skills of our own revered citizen, McDonald Frump."

Think about it. Cheers and goodnight.