I admire Bill Gates. He's obviously added to the overall wealth of many people and the country. I don't admire people who simply inherit wealth, and I don't see it economically efficient to return to a robber baron class, which is where we are headed. I see the issue as one of shifting tax burden from capital to wages. That has both economic efficiency and social issues. In short, msft has been great with him at the head, but if his daughter simply inherits it because of birth and not merit, the shareholders are fIcked. And, Gates has said that won't happen.
And I don't think your assertion that wages are better now than thirty years ago is correct, esp if you factor in the cost of higher education, which for me was essentially free because the rich were taxed more than they are today ... as measured by a percentage of earnings/wealth.
Certainly the congressional budget office doesn't agree with your assertion, and these figures don't even factor in the BushII tax cut. See esp Table 3 where there's an analysis of post-tax income. Moreover, especially for the top 1%, measuring income is misleading because the objective there is show capital appreciation without income.
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index...m=4&sequence=0