| | | Jesse Ventura: It's Time for a 'Maximum Wage'
$12M a year is enough for anyone, former governor and wrestler says
By Bob Cronin, Newser Staff
Posted Feb 7, 2021 10:30 AM CST
newser.com
(NEWSER) – "There shouldn't be one billionaire," former Gov. Jesse Ventua says. "There shouldn't be one person worth a billion dollars." He has a plan to take care of that, per LADbible. "Everybody talks about a minimum wage, a minimum wage, a minimum wage—I say it's time for a maximum wage." It should be $12 million a year, Ventura said, and it should be enforced. "If you can't live on $12 million a year, $1 million a month—maybe we should bring back capital punishment." Ventura, 69, made the comments on RT, the Russian news channel, and he sounded disenchanted with capitalism. "And I know that's shocking to hearing it come from me, but the older I get the more flaws I see in capitalism," he said, "and the more good things sometimes I see in more socialism."
Ventura cited his first job out of high school: working a jackhammer for the Minnesota State Highway Department bridge crew. "That is the hardest job on the planet—you find me one that's physically or mentally tougher, and I was barely making above minimum wage." Ventura said the billionaires who are now "doubling their wealth" don't work any harder than he did. The nation's wealthiest have been taking heat lately, especially in light of the pandemic struggles of other Americans. With Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on his way to becoming a trillionaire, lawmakers have accused him of "atrocious greed" and called it immoral to pile up wealth like that during a pandemic. Between mid-March of last year, when the pandemic took hold, and the end of 2020, 56 Americans became billionaires, per NBC. (Read more Jesse Ventura stories.) |
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