I'm a day late. But here's an idea that came from a conversation with some soccer moms at my son's game last week.
We were chatting about David Beckham, the English soccer phenom coming to America to play for a team in Los Angeles and the amazingly ridiculous amount of money he would be making from his contract which included several endorsement deals. He will be making the amazing sum of $250 million in the next five years.
So here's my idea. How much can any one person really expect to spend in their lifetime? Even if they have the noble intentions of providing for their future generations, they just don't need unlimited amounts of cash when others in the world are in such need. So I propose an earning cap on all sports, entertainment and corporate executives. Something very generous like 15 million per year. Any money earned after that, would be required to be donated to legitimate charities. So sports stars, celebrities and other rich folks would be required to share the wealth but they would get to choose the causes they would like to support. They could decide to give to charities that support literacy, global causes, environmental issues, health and science, etc. But the basic principle would be that the money they make from adoration/support/business of others would be shared and benefit the greater good of humanity. (One caveat - there would be caps on the amount they could give to any one charity to prevent favoritism and there would be some sort of tax break incentives for the givers as they increase the number of charities they help. The more they work to spread their wealth, the better for them.)
Just an idea, but I'd love to see how this could change our world.
For more great ideas, go here.
7 comments:
Great idea!
Sounds great to me too!
I agree. Professional athletes earn way too much money. There's something obscene about it all.
With great wealth comes great responsibility. True wealth is found in giving not receiving.
This is why gift giving is so important to you.
bg
I like your idea. And David Beckham is fabulous - I still can't believe he passed up Chelsea to go to America. But I'm sure his high profile will do wonders for American soccer. And he does a lot of charity work and runs football camps for young kids.
Oh man, this is a super idea! But those egomaniacs would never agree to this. I have such isssues with pro-sports players. Issues, I say!!
If only you ruled the world, Kim
:)
Haven't been by much lately, but just read this in the process of catching up. Sounds like a great idea to me. The cynic in me says someone would just find a loophole way of getting around it, but still in theory it is an awesome idea. In fairness though, I would have to think(maybe I am naive) most of those people are already giving countless millions to all kinds of charities. We rarely hear that side of it though. Good to see you again finally. Now that I have bloglines hopefully I can actually keep up.
BD
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