My 8-Step Economic Recovery Plan

Step One. No employee or executive of a given company can earn more than fifty times what any other employee or executive in the same company earns. No exceptions.

Step Two. Productivity and usefulness will always receive greater rewards than consumption and ineffectuality. Need will always receive greater compensation than cunning.

Step Three. No wealth is inheritable. Personal wealth dissolves upon decease. Survivors may purchase properties thus left in limbo—and in life, individuals are free to give gifts to whomever they please.

Step Four. Every college and university student will have to minor in some area to ensure that she or he can make and repair something of use to society or can provide another service that has demonstrable benefits to others.

Step Five. Nothing in the universe will cost more than a million dollars. Anyone who buys anything that costs a million dollars will know up front that he or she will never see a profit from reselling it. The cost of things will be adjusted to fit the new economy—no form of housing will cost more than $70,000, no bicycle will cost more than $100, no loaf of bread more than 25 cents, etc.

Step Six. Workers and investors will share equally in the profits of any venture—with exceptions for work and investments of exceptional value (provided such value can be supported in evidence). Workers and investors will share equally in the risks of any venture—with exceptions for workers or investors for whom the costs of the risk are demonstrably more severe than for other workers or investors.

Step Seven. Advertising will be restricted to the description of verifiable facts about the product (size, color, ingredients, etc.) or the service (time frame, processes, equipment, etc.). No promises will be made or implied that products contribute meaningfully to one’s sex life, sense of belonging, closeness to nature, patriotism, rebel image, desire for eternal youth, or admiration for small animals and children. Appeals to magical thinking or impulse will be strictly forbidden.

Step Eight. The porn industry will be recognized as a religious organization—in the service of the god Eros. Like other religious groups, it will operate tax free, yet remain free to encroach on legislation and judicial interpretation of laws uninhibitedly. If politicians and judges caught with their panties down are no more subject to censure or impeachment than a new President who commissions three Protestant prayers for his inauguration, the nation may spare itself the cost of investigating, censuring, and impeaching politicians over what they do with their willies and pussies with consenting partners.

(Of course, it would seem to make better sense to tax porn ... and churches …, just to relieve the public debt, if nothing else, though arguably porn, anyway, provides a service to society.)