And now for something completely different

Surprisingly I will not talk about anything that has happened to me since nothing major has happened to me.
ON TO THE RANDOM MUSINGS!!!

The United States is a fairly decent place, if you don't count the over-commercialism, crime, failing economy, etc. Life is fairly good here, if you are paid decently. Unfortunately not everyone is paid decently. Most people don't get outstanding wages until they have A) been in the same job for a long time, like CEO's (climbing the corporate ladder) or doctors and lawyers (paying for their education) or B) are extremely lucky and play a sport, where they get paid very well for a short period of time before they are told to retire. Inflation is ruining the economy and imports and flooding the market with useless junk while we send all of our surplus out of country. In short, the economy needs to be completely reworked.

First off, taxes. Most people say that we need to lower taxes so that we have more money to spend and raise the standard of living. While it is true that it would increase the standard of living a bit, it would harm the government by removing their only source of funding. However, one could remove most of the taxes like property, income, and stamp taxes and replace them with one tax, Sales. The US government currently has no sales tax. However, if it implemented one, it could cover all of its expenses with a single tax, say 50%, only on non-essentials. Therefore any poverty-stricken people could survive on what little they receive and not have to worry about their money going to straight to the government. It would also make those who actually have money pay for the government whenever they buy something like, say, a new car, TV, house, etc. This would also discourage waste as the prices are considerably raised.

Next, minimum wage. Totally pointless. One of the main arguments for it is that it raises the standard of living. Unfortunately those who say this do not grasp some simple economic principles. Firstly, the money for the increased wages of the workers has to come from somewhere. This means that to pay the minimum wage workers, the company has to either lower the wages of the higher payed employees or increase the cost of goods. I know of very few people who would be willing to accept the former, so usually the latter is applied. Considering the fact that most companies have to pay minimum wage, this means that prices go up all around, making the price of goods increase and therefore negating the raising of the standard of living argument as the goods went up in price as the wages went up, equalizing any gain in standard of living. In fact, this could DECREASE the standard of living, as many manufactured goods rely on other goods to produce and ship, and when the wages of these go up, each part of the manufactured good costs more, increasing the cost of the final good exponentially.

To counter this, I propose that instead of a minimum wage, we impose a maximum wage. If wages cannot exceed a certain amount than everyone lives at or near the same socioeconomic level. If we put the maximum wage at $1 an hour, prices of many goods would drop greatly, many common items to as low as a couple of cents each. This solution would not only equalize everyone but greatly increase the standard of living and make the value of the dollar skyrocket. Unfortunately, prices of foreign items might be ridiculously high until they recognize the increased value of the dollar. On the bright side, this would encourage growth in the sectors of the economy currently covered by other countries, making our country more self-sufficient and able to compete with various foreign companies with higher quality products at cheaper prices.

Some people might see this and say that it sounds like its only a step away from socialism or communism, but in truth this is not necessarily a bad thing. Most of the bad press about communism is either because of poor management or propaganda set forth by big business that felt threatened by the fact that they would lose control. But that is for some other time when we look into…

LIFE,
THE UNIVERSE,
AND EVERYTHING