Socialism is coming tragically into sight.

Tamara makes a prescient comment here:

Of course the .gov thinks it's right and proper to tell you the minimum you can pay someone, so why not dictate the maximum, too? And if CEO's are limited to $500k/yr, how about CFO's? Regional marketing directors? What about customer service supervisors, server maintenance guys, and janitors? Heck, why don't they just gin up a table of the acceptable wages for every job title in the country?

As fun as it is to see the instructive lesson being demonstrated of what happens when you take Ceasar's coin, Tamara's point is disturbingly spot-on. Think of the eventual ramifications.

'Way back in 1942, Wickard first said that the Fed could tell you whether or not you could grow wheat even for your own use, because it was a fungible item, subject to control by the Interstate Commerce clause. I've already ranted on how that got extrapolated into Raitch [2005].

Between the occasional tax break given for businesses, and federally-secured college loans for company officers, I reckon that the fed could claim to have a finger in the pie of every business in the U.S., to justify its interference. Using the Raich standard, it probably doesn't even need that; it's got the Interstate Commerce Clause.

Somebody stop this train. I believe that I'd like to get off.