After minimum wage… how about a maximum wage?

The public disgust at the vast paycheques and bonuses paid to bankers in the City of London was intense. Why should anyone should earn so much, yet alone those who don’t actually make anything? (don’t give me any crap about how they “make wealth” – they take wealth away from the rest of us, the parasites)

So why don’t we impose a maximum wage? We already have a minimum wage in the UK, surely it’s not that hard to come up with a legal framework for a maximum wage including expenses, bonuses and shares?

It’s pretty certain that you wouldn’t personally be affected by my proposal (unless multi-millionaires spend their time reading obscure bloggers). So how much should we let the rich have? What would be a reasonable figure? 1 million a year? What about 100 times the minimum wage?

According to HM Revenue & Customs minimum wage is £5.80. So an person working a typical 40 hour week, 52 weeks of the year would earn £12,064. So 100 times this would be just over 1.2 million. That seems reasonable. And why should any individual get as much as 100 other people.

A counter argument is that this would send big earners overseas. Good, it frees up well paid jobs for the rest of us. If they are earning that much they drive up the cost of everything for the rest of us with their excessive purchasing power, the [insert you own choice expletive here]s.

Further reading and food for thought:
“Highest paid director gets 900 times more than his average employee“

Stop Press:

Goldman Sachs have capped pay and bonuses in 2009, at £1m each. It can be done.