"I do think there has to be less disparity between the ultra rich,rich,middle class,poor and poverty stricken..."
Do you think the degree of disparity is positively or negatively related to economic liberty?
"When one million dollars is paid to Trump for speaking... that's too much money."
Then don't pay to hear him speak. Personally, I wouldn't pay to hear him speak either, but who are we to tell others they can't do so - or tell him he can't charge for speaking engagements, for that matter?
"We have lost perspective. We put children in the hands of teachers who have been in the past underpaid...and expect our athletes who entertain us to receive billions.."
Hmm. First, I note that you wrote "in the past underpaid." If that means, by rather clear implication, that they are no longer underpaid (in general, that is, which I think is true), then that would imply that we are gaining rather than losing perspective.
Second, "athletes ... receiv[ing] billions" is a bit of an overstatement, wouldn't you say? Unless you're talking collectively, in which case you should compare it to other entire industries, not the typical salary in just one other - though I'm not sure what meaningful information one could get from doing that.
Third, just as Trump is selling a product, they are selling a product, too - their relatively scarce athletic talents that entertain us. What they are paid is determined by market forces. In other words, US. If we choose to consume what they are selling, in the quantities and at the prices prevailing in the sports entertainment market today, then their huge incomes are the result of our desires as much as theirs, our greed for entertainment as much as theirs for money.
That's the way markets work. And personally, I'd have it no other way. If we start heading down that road, where we start legislating what is a "fair" price for someone's product or someone's labor based on the subjective judgements of politicians, bureaucrats, or even voters, then we are on a dangerous road indeed.
BTW, "inequity" is what Marxist and socialist doctrine was supposedly all about, too. In the name of reducing it, they increased it - or perhaps more accurately, reduced (nearly) everyone (except the ruling/favored class) to the same dismal level. |
