How Much Lazier Are You Than Mitt Romney?

So a site had been posted recently to show how long it would take Mitt Romney to make your annual income (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/01/romney_income_calculator_how_much_does_mitt_make_how_long_would_it_take_him_to_earn_your_salary_.html ).


This led to me thinking... how much lazier are you than Mitt Romney?


Actually, what I'm really thinking about is if our economic systems really gives people what they deserve financially or not, but this calculator just makes it easier to use Mitt Romney as the example (my point could be made even stronger if I used someone who made even more money than Romney, but I'll stick with Romney since the site above used him and I can still make my point clearly with him as the example).


First, let's say our economic system pays people what they deserve.  This would seem to mean that if a person works and gets paid what he deserves and is paid $1, then another person who works twice as hard as the former person would get paid $2, since that is what he would deserve for working twice as hard as a person who worked enough to only deserve $1.


With that in mind, consider that the average American makes around $50,000 a year (I believe this is being generous and the average is actually less than this).  In 2010, Romney made $21.6 million.  Using the link above (or just a normal calculator if you prefer), you get this:


"In 2010, Mitt Romney made $50000 in 20 hours 13 minutes and 13 seconds.


It would take you 433 years 2 months 21 days 23 hours 28 minutes and 7 seconds to make what Mitt made in 2010."

The underlined section is what I'll be referring to.  If both the average American and Mitt Romney get paid what they deserve, this would seem to mean that the average American is about 433 times as lazy as Romney!  It would almost be putting it lightly to say that is impossible.

But let's be fair.  Maybe we should take into after-tax income, in hopes that our tax system is meant to give people what they actually deserve (which is not the purpose, but let's pretend for this experiment).

Now, let's say Romney had a 70% tax rate on his $21.6 million, which is quite a bit higher than what he actually paid, but let's use a "high" tax rate like this anyway for now.  This would make Romney's after-tax income be $6.48 million.  Now, let's say that that average American making $50,000 a year didn't pay any taxes.  Surely this would have to to be much closer to giving people what they deserve!  


However, even in this scenario, this economic system would still show the average American to be about 129 times as lazy as Romney.  I doubt we need a scientist to come and confirm that this is not physically possible by taking something like the average physical and mental stress of the average American, multiplying that by 129 (or 433 in the first case), and seeing if Romney's body could handle it.  

But that was all just a hypothetical case to show that even with high taxes, people like Mitt Romney are either getting way more than they deserve for their hard work, or the average American is getting way less than they deserve for their hard work.

So, if Romney believes our economic system gives people what they deserve for their hard work, then he is committed to agreeing that the average American is about 433 times lazier than he is.  

To be fair, there may be other reasons Romney is entitled to his money or even good reasons why the average American only makes $50,000 a year, but as far as this reason being that our economic systems pays people who work hard what they deserve?  This is not anywhere close to being true.

If we want a system that pays people what they deserve, we need a system that either pays people like Romney much less, or pays the average American much more.  

Deserving Heaven and Hell

Can a person ever deserve to spend eternity in heaven or hell?

Consider the idea that "the punishment should fit the crime." Things like a lifetime in prison for stealing bubblegum or a fine of five dollars for murder are both thought to be wrong because their punishments are not proportionate to the crimes being committed.

So it can be wrong to both under-punish and over-punish a person for a crime.

Perhaps a simple way to think of what would be a fair reward or punishment is in terms of pain and pleasure. If your immoral act causes x amount of pain, you deserve to be punished in a way where you'll receive x amount of pain. If your moral act causes y amount of pleasure, you deserved to be rewarded with y amount of pleasure.

Now it seems that actions can either cause a finite or an infinite amount of pain and pleasure.

If actions can cause a finite amount of pain and pleasure, then it means in our lifetimes we will only ever cause a finite amount of pain and pleasure. The problem with this is that if we cause a finite amount of pain and are punished with an infinite amount of pain, which is what hell would appear to do, then spending an eternity in hell is not a fair punishment because it will punish a person too harshly. Further, if we cause a finite amount of pleasure and are rewarded with an infinite amount of pleasure, which is what heaven would appear to do, then we would be overly-rewarded for our actions. Therefore, in this case, whether we go to heaven or hell, we will not be getting what we deserve.

But what about the second option? Can our actions cause an infinite amount of pain and pleasure?

First, I should say that I don't think it's like that are actions cause an infinite amount of pain or pleasure, at least in any reasonable sense. Take an act like murder, which is arguably the worst action a person can commit. Let's say I kill a person who is 20 years old. Let's be generous and say my victim would have lived to be 100 years old if I had not killed him. So I've taken away 80 years of his life, along with the pain of the murder itself. Perhaps it would be reasonable for me to be tortured in hell for every year I took away from my victim, plus a few extra years for the pain caused in the murder. But even if I try to go with a more extreme punishment, say one million years of the worst torture hell has to offer for every year of life I took away from my victim, this would still only lead to a fair punishment being 80 million years in hell, and punishing me with an eternity in hell when I deserve 80 million years in hell would not be just.

Second, even if our actions can cause an infinite amount of pain or pleasure, this could cause it's own problems. For example, what if I do one act that causes an infinite amount of pain, but then I do an act that causes an infinite amount of pleasure? Do I receive an afterlife where I experience both an infinite amount of pain and an infinite amount of pleasure? Do they cancel each other out? Perhaps these aren't huge problem and if it is the case that our actions can cause an infinite amount of pain and pleasure, this would solve the problem of deserving heaven or hell, but again, I do not think it's reasonable to think our actions cause an infinite amount of pain and pleasure.

Perhaps there is another sense of desert that can show how a person could deserve heaven or hell. For example, if I tell you that if you do x then y will happen, then you go ahead and do x anyway, it could be argued that you deserve y.

Imagine I'm talking to Jesus and I tell him that my room is being fumigated and if he goes in there, he's gonna become sick. Jesus responds, "Whatever" and goes into the room anyway and ends up getting sick. Jesus has never done anything wrong, but because I told him he'd get sick if he went into my room and he did it anyone, perhaps it's right to say that he deserved to get sick.

Maybe it is in this sense that a person can deserve to go to heaven or hell. Perhaps God could say, "Look, I told you all that if you do good things, you'll go to heaven for eternity. If you do bad things, you'll go to hell for eternity. If knowing that you still went and did bad things anyway, you deserve to go to hell. It's as simple as that."

This of course has its own problems, such as people who haven't been told that they will go to heaven or hell for eternity based on their actions and whether or not this is really "desert" and not something else, but maybe it can help solve this conflict between desert, heaven, and hell.

... But probably not.