Save the Middle Class.

I agree whole-heartedly about fair wages. I don't think people often consider that the enormous wage disparities have real consequence. 16 billion dollars for 4 kids. Hmm. Not considering interest, each kid could pay 16000 people 40,000 dollars annually for 25 years. That's 64000 middle class people, paid for life, or 4 kings. Also, you can assume that those 64000 people are going to put that cash back into the economy. -They need to spend most of it.

No doubt there is a use for rich people, just like a use for poor. However, I think the middle class is critical. It provides political stability, and is where 'added value' in an economy really takes place.

I don't think we should talk in terms of helping the poor, so much as growing the middle class. People can get behind that. It doesn't sound like a hand out, and it's good for everyone.

I'd say the number of poor is much more a function of the behavior of the very rich than the behavior of the poor themselves. Guess who makes policy?

I think something around 100 million dollars should be enough for anyone. However, I hate wage caps, as people would just move over seas to avoid it. There needs to be real incentive to drive that huge amount of wealth up top back down. However, I am not sure what that incentive could be.

Still, a company like Wallmart that depresses wages in an area due to unfettered market manipulation, which results in a pooling of money up top, does not grow the middle class. And, likely, reduces economic and political stability.

What we need are reliable scientific measures of a company's effects upon the health of the economy as a whole. Just like pollution controls, we need to institute policy that protects us from unfettered harvesting or waste of the economy's resources, workers and institutions alike. Our economy is very similar to a living thing or ecosystem. We need to treat it as such. -Economentalism.