Now, let me address some of your later points without going back and cutting and pasting.
It is clear to me from your comments that your earlier life experiences have biased you toward the socialist side. PolySci student, public policy analyst, etc would tend to make me think you lean in that direction. It's obvious your ideas differ from those of most of us here, but that's OK. Not likely we're going to change each other's minds, but it may make us consider some things we hadn't previously.
Does income disparity bother me? No. Is there any monetary level of disparity that would bother me? No. Would I feel the same way under a return to the fuedal system? No. Apples and Oranges. In a fuedal system no amount of hard work or study gets the peon off the land (other than military service.) Here and now, there are always ways to get ahead if you stop whining and take them.
I mean, hell, if you dangle a big enough carrot in front of me, I'd probably loot a pension fund or bilk little old ladies out of their life savings, whatever.
That, unfortunately say a lot about you. Especially if you think that everyone thinks that way. They don't. I don't. Some do. They need to be sanctioned, not restrict commerce in general because some may be unethical. Besides, until you codify "unethical" into crimminal behaviour, it's just another set of opinions.
I believe that the purpose of a national economy should be to provide the greatest good to the greatest number of the country's population. So, yeah, call me a socialist if you must, but if an economy reaches a level at which the vast majority of the rewards are going to a tiny fraction of the population, at the expense of the majority of the population, then, yes, I have a problem with it.
I believe that there should be NO purpose to a national economy. It just IS. The national economy is merely the aggregate of the individual microeconomic activites. To try to impose control over the national economy is an unacceptable intrusion into the actions of free individuals. (I know, I know, it's done constantly, but it's the principle.) As to the percentage of rewards going to the few, if it's the few that are putting out the effort, then so be it. I mentioned above that I am not encouraged by the attitude of today's youth. The majority attitude of most (including, unfortunately, my own 24 yr old son) is to work just enough to get along. Yes, there are exceptions, but the trend is depressing.
In addition, although I don't pretend to be an expert on it, I certainly hear a great deal from a wide variety of sources about the ingenuity that the wealthy demonstrate in finding offshore tex shelters and other creative ways of escaping tax bills. Do people here contest that those kinds of tax shelters exist and are used?
I don't. The politicians write laws carefully crafted to extract as much tax as they can without being thrown out by their constituents. The people examine these same laws to find ways to lessen the tax. In many cases the tax code is written in a way to encourage a certain social or economic behavior. Then they complain when too many people take advantage of it. Want to get rid of tax shelters? Write tax laws without loopholes. It's hard. How about a flat tax?
Several million people without health insurance. So? That's about 1% of the population. Almost insignificant statistically. Maybe it's not to them, but I am not responsible for their well-being. They are. Call me cruel.
I guess that's enough for now. I usually don't write this much, but I've been home from work for two weeks now with a lung infection, so have more time on the 'net. Yes, I have health insurance, but I have still had to write checks for over $1000 in the last two weeks for doctor's copay and procedures that weren't fully covered. But. hey, I'm insured.
Come back.