If money is finite, then hoarding money is a crime.

I remember when I was in Sunday School and my youth leader, David Pauley, asked one day, “If a genie gave you three wishes, what would they be?” I responded, “To fly, have world peace (my Jesus answer) and all the money in the world.”

Pauley then questioned my last response. “So if you had all the money in the world, would not anyone else have money?”

From then on I realized it was neither fair nor moral to have all the money in the world. Unfortunately, there are some people that never learn that lesson. In the United States, 83 percent of the wealth is held by the top 10 percent.

That is like 10 people at a party ordering a pizza. Everyone throws down $2, and they have it sliced into 10 pieces. When the pizza comes, one guy goes over and takes 8 slices; he says he deserves more since ordering pizza was his idea.

In a society, all those that contribute to its prosperity have the right to equal share. Most of us are willing to sacrifice a little of our share to reward those who are by nature, or persistence, gifted. Although we should sacrifice, we are sacrificing too much.

Taxes are not the way to solve the issue. First, taxes are permeable. Given any sort of politics, taxes will never represent what ought to be, but always what is. Second, I believe that government should give some money to the poor, but I am not fond of government redistribution of wealth. Third, loop holes in the tax code are good. Loop holes direct private investment and give a lot of lawyers and accountants jobs.

Instead of a loop hole-free tax code, the United States should enact legislation capping an individual’s net worth at a billion dollars.

To me, capping an individual’s net worth has two potential problems. The first is other countries produce multi-billionaires. Will a cap hurt the U.S.’s ability to invest? I would say no, since one can always partner with other investors. The second issue is that our “gifted” may emigrate. Although, if they are that selfish, do we really want them?

Even if a cap on net worth did not increase the median income in the United States by one penny, it would at least create a bunch of new billionaires. New billionaires would be created because that money would have to go somewhere.

Hopefully we can agree that the United States as a whole has a certain net worth. Imagine that net worth in terms of volume. Take a tissue box and mark its X and Y axes in one-inch increments. Imagine the X axis of the box as representing the number of people and the Y axis as representing amount of wealth. As you would see, placing the box horizontally would put the most people at the “top.”

Another reason to support a cap on net worth is that the government will not be doing the redistribution. Market forces will determine who gets the extra slices of pizza, not Uncle Sam forcing you to give it to your sister.

The final reason why you should support a cap on net worth is that it will finally make “trickle-down economics” work (or work better depending on your point of view). The extremely wealthy will have to sell their stock, spend their accumulated interest or step aside and let someone else earn the money.

I can guarantee there will be comments to this column at northernstar.info saying how childish my views are. To those people who exercise their right to call me stupid, I ask one thing. In your response, name a worse sociopath than the one sitting on his or her private island wanting more.