WEALTH

Should We Put a Limit on Personal Wealth?

I think we should, but we’d need to be smart about it

Gold Liberty Bullion Coin photo by author

The mega-rich have too much power in our society. They can control our politicians, they can often bully their way through our legal system, and they can influence markets to their own advantage.

The more money they have, the more power they have. There should be a hard limit. But there are problems that immediately pop up should such a limit be imposed.

The source of wealth

Wealth is much more than dollars. It could be homes, gold and silver metals, art, coin and stamp collections, and, of course, stocks. The value of these things can change. They should be exempt, but that leaves the problem of borrowing against them. Normally, the money borrowed would not change net worth as the borrowed money would be offset by the debt.

Perhaps some limit on how much can be borrowed by an individual? I’m not at all convinced that’s a good answer, but something has to curb the ability to acquire more and more exempt assets.

Maybe some percentage of non-monetary assets should be counted against the maximum? I’d think that is also complicated because some assets are more volatile than others.

Do you have any good ideas?

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