Monetary value and taxes

The monetary value of something is the amount of money it is sold for or can potentially be sold for. It is not the cost of materials, labor, research, overhead, etc., though those things and many more may affect the value of goods or services.
The amount of money a person makes is an agreement between the person making the money and the person or persons paying for services rendered. The potential monetary value for that person depends on what that person does to persuade others to pay them.

Gold is currently more or less $1000.00 US dollars an ounce. Gasoline’s average price in the USA is approximately $2.32 a gallon.
Is it possible to fix the price of any item based on a fair calculation of the cost of materials, labor, research, overhead, etc., and keep the price fixed forever or for a predetermined amount of time?
Is it possible to fix the wages of a person based on a fair calculation of their monetary value to an employer or to society?
Who would be the ultimate authority on fixing the monetary value of wages and goods and services?
It is true some things like taxes and wages are fixed for a time (more on that below).

If people were motivated to work to provide goods and services without any pay and were able to receive goods and services in return for free than nobody would need money and everyone would be happy right?
I don’t see people being motivated to work sometimes even when they are being paid well in my mind. I don’t see how all people would ever be motivated to work for free.
If prices and wages were fixed by an ultimate authority would people be motivated because they believe that authority is right and fair?
Again, I’ve seen people who were not motivated who were paid very well by USA standards, and people who were very motivated and not being paid very well at all.
What does this mean? I believe it means the monetary value of wages, goods, and services should never be fixed across the board for society by a sole authority.
What about minimum wages, taxes, and child labor laws? We already have those laws and while not everyone agrees on the amounts (or even existence) of minimum wage, taxes, or the minimum age for child labor, at least the minimum wage and taxes are nearly constantly hotly debated.

The USA has been able to maintain a nearly free market economy and generate more wealth for the general population through a variety of goods and services than maybe any other country.
We have people in the USA living in poverty. Should we pay more taxes to give more money to people in our country who are below what we call the poverty line?
Should we pay more taxes to give more money to people in the rest of the world who live below what we call the poverty line?
Should we pay more taxes to give money to other countries to help them defend themselves against other countries, or so they defend us so we don’t have to defend ourselves?
Should we make people who make the most money in our country ‘the top one percent people’ pay more taxes to help people in our country?
Should we make people who make the most money in our country ‘the top one percent people’ pay more taxes to help people in other countries?
Should everyone pay a flat tax percentage like say 25 cents out of every dollar earned?
Would a national sales tax on only items sold work better than the income tax system we have now?

How is it that the people I talk to like the idea of a flat tax or national sales tax but those ideas never become law?
How is it that some of those same people would swear by a flat tax or national sales tax, but would alternately support the idea of taxing the top one percent wage earners?
Those people somehow think it fair we all pay the same percent percentage of taxes but if we can’t than at least we shouldn’t raise their taxes, we should just raise the taxes on those ‘rich’ people.
The most obvious reason is many people think it won’t hurt those top one percent rich people to pay more. After all they have everything they could possibly want. How could it hurt them to pay more?

I don’t think that way but I am sure some of our politicians think that way or at least figure they can get a lot of people under the top one percent to think that way.
So just what does ‘fair’ mean when it comes to money anyway?
I attempted to be fair when I wrote this. I think we have a country that can still be changed for the better and that well informed people voting and calling their representatives in government is the way to change it.
It seems like taxing the richest top one percent people in this country would be an easy law to pass since it only affects one percent. Some would argue that the richest people will use their money to fight it. Some of the top one percent have even stated that it is fair that they pay more.

No matter what politics are involved and what the outcome is I will never say it is fair for some people to pay even more than they do now just to make it easier on others though obviously we have done just that with our tax system in the past.
I will say however a national sales tax would seem to be fair and even people currently getting out of paying any taxes would have to pay taxes when buying.
I think those details could be worked out to provide the tax money needed to run this country.
I also think a flat tax could have a similar result but there would still be many more people not paying taxes than with a national sales tax.
Maybe we need an intelligent combination of both!