It's easy to save the world when you've already taken care of yourself. But, we rely on these mavericks -- the wealthy who realize they can make a difference -- to do what we cannot on our own. So, it comes as a relief that Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft (MSFT) believes executive compensation is still too high.

It's a murky topic, and some forms of regulation, Gates believes, won't help. In a discussion on philanthropy at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, where many of the people Gates criticized send their kids for early education, the former CEO and still rich guy cites the $1 million executive salary cap required by law in 1993 as a big mistake. While compensation has to be controlled, he believes this measure backfired and thinks that other, similar efforts are doomed to fail now.

Sen. Claire McCaskill has come up with a novel way to cut compensation on Wall Street. The government should force a cap on the salary of every employee at firms that take TARP money. The upper limit would be $400,000. Not just the CEOs and top managers -- everyone. That would include the most elite bankers and traders who often make their firms hundreds of millions of dollars.

If the plan goes through, and that is a big if, it could measurably improve profit margins at big investment banks like Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS). It could also force a lot of the best talent out the door.

After the New York Yankees signed the three biggest free agents on the market, Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio sent an email to Bloomberg calling for a salary cap: "At the rate the Yankees are going, I'm not sure anyone can compete with them. Frankly, the sport might need a salary cap." He added that "I paid $220 million for my team; now they get three players for $420 million."

Under a salary cap system, teams would be limited as far as how much they can spend on player salaries each year -- the idea is to allow smaller-market teams to be competitive.

But in an interview with CNBC, Scott Boras -- the controversial super-agent who represents Mark Teixeira, Manny Ramirez and many others -- explained why he doesn't think baseball should have a salary cap. Of course it's a pretty self-serving argument but here's what he said: "I'm not sure what a salary cap does other than it prevents choices."

Of course Scott Boras could sell a champion sailor to a guy in the desert, but he actually might be onto something with this one: The free agent frenzy of out of control spending adds a "Hot Stove" season to baseball that others sports lack. And for all the talk about big budget teams killing competitiveness, the two teams that made it to the World Series ranked 13th and 29th (second to last) on the list of teams with the biggest budgets.

With the signings of C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira, The New York Yankees have signed the three biggest contracts of the off-season.

That spending spree is raising concerns about competitive balance in baseball, and Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is none too pleased. In an email to Bloomberg, he wrote that "At the rate the Yankees are going, I'm not sure anyone can compete with them. Frankly, the sport might need a salary cap."

In a phone interview with Bloomberg, he added that "I paid $220 million for my team; now they get three players for $420 million." Brewers assistant general manager Gord Ash had some fighting words for the Yankees: "This is very reminiscent of what they have tried before. It didn't work then, and I'm not sure it's going to work now."

Whether baseball will ever end up with a salary cap is an open question. Under the current system, teams that spend huge sums of money on players are required to pay a "luxury tax" to the league, but that seems to do little to dissuade these signings.

For the sport as a business, a salary cap seems to be the way to go. This arms race hurts profitability for all teams, and it certainly seems to be having a negative impact on team values. According to Forbes, the average National Football League team, which operates under a salary cap with non-guaranteed contracts, is worth $1.04 billion. In baseball, only the Yankees are valued at more than $1 billion, and the league average is just $472 million.

Most people in the United States and for sure shareholders of losing companies have been railing against executive pay for many years. It is generally agreed the salaries, bonuses, stock options, deferred compensation, and retirement packages have become ridiculous and do not reflect anything other then the "good ol' boy network" operating at its worst.

Compensation committees substantiate their decisions in a fashion that outlines plausible deniability not merit, value or truth. They do not reflect shareholders, employees, or customers best interest. They reflect a tight knit group that has to pay and pay big so that they can get theirs in the next round.

This brings me to the National Basketball Association and its use of the salary cap. We just witnessed an NBA finals where the better team won (Boston Celtics in six games) and that is the nature of the game. It's five on five, the best player does not take every shot and the best player cannot defend the other team by himself.

Wal-Mart employs nearly as many people as the U.S. government, and its 1.3 million "associates" are so often the source of pity to the nation's economists. They make so little, it's said, they often can't afford to shop in their own low-priced employer's stores.

That makes news that starting pay will rise at about a third of Wal-Mart's U.S. stores, big. Wal-Mart says the range of starting hourly wages will increase an average of 6% but gave no details such as example starting pay. Additionally, the retail chain is instituting new wage caps on each type of job.

Interestingly, the Wal-Mart spokesperson responsible for this news spun the caps as a positive (paraphrase thanks to the AP): "the wage caps give current associates an incentive to move up to higher positions if they want to make more money." Umm... sure. Now employees must get more responsibility if they want more money, I suppose. In the abstract, it's a good thing, but having managed lots of people I've learned that not everyone is cut out for responsibility; the new caps will limit the lifetime earnings potential of thousands upon thousands of employees.