> Ah, we've reached the crux of the problem. You are not concerned with making things good only with making them even. This is just crab mentality[1]. Someone else has more than you, so you need to pull them down. Or perhaps you've conflated the two and think that if things are even, they will necessarily be good, or at least better than they are when they're uneven. Let me assure you, it is entirely possible for things to become more even and also have everyone be worse off than they were before.
That's another assumption, I'm concerned about both. You still haven't answered the question of what is going to be harmed by reducing the wealth of every billionaire by 73%. I see you have concerns about government ineptly wasting the money, but even if they did, it's not clear how that would be materially worse for the average American. The worst way the government could spend that money would be to hand it back to the billionaires, which would put us back in the current situation. I'm open to an alternative, but I don't want assurances. I want historical examples, preferably ones that occur in the United States. Raising the specter of Communism is useless demagoguery, since there is no serious constituency for it.
> Sure, we can invest in those things. We can also pursue policies (like antitrust enforcement) that would naturally result in less inequality without distorting the market by confiscating and destroying wealth when it reaches some arbitrary number.
War anti-trust enforcement! You have to do both though. You don't have to destroy wealth, you can also redistribute it in various ways. Even George W. Bush was a fan of the ole' stimulus check. I also hear the people would really like a public healthcare option - investing in that might spur some economic growth.
> It's true the New Deal happened and then a strong middle class emerged some years later, that doesn't mean one caused the other. There was a little thing called World War II as well, and the rest of the productive capacity of the industrial world being destroyed with only America left may have contributed to the abundance of high-paying manufacturing jobs, just a little.
Well, we tried doing it the way the laissez-faire way after Europe destroyed it's labor capacity in WW1, and it resulted in the Great Depression. We tried the New Deal, fought a Europe-destroying war, followed by more Keynesian policy, and it resulted in prosperity (including the areas rebuilt under the Marshall Plan). I'm just some guy, but I'm going to go with my gut and say we should do the thing that worked, over the economic ideology that has failed the average American every time it has been trotted out.
> Yeah, there's a historical precedent for burning witches at the stake too, that doesn't mean it's a good thing.
Now you are just being hysterical. Forcing Jeff Bezos to live on a mere $50,000,000,000 is hardly burning him at the stake.