I didn't say wealth is bad, come on man you know me better than that. And don't use examples of other countries past or present. We're talking about our country and the situation right now. And yes, what we have now is far better than 15th century Europe or modern day Asia. By the same token the Gilded Age was a thing. You do not want to have a Gilded Age 2.0 with another group of JP Morgans, Rockefeller's, etc. which is where we are headed to.
You said excess of wealth. My argument is who the hell cares because they earned that wealth because they provide a valuable product/service to the community. Unlike those who have inherited wealth from 15th century monarchs. I was talking about present day. Those families and the families of BMW/Mercedes still have that wealth. They didn't earn it. Bezos and Zuck earned their money.
Also, I have no problem with Morgan, Rockefeller, etc. These guys helped build the largest economy in history that we enjoy the fruits of. Even the poor. Being poor in America is 1000x better than being poor in 99% of the world.
Oh and do you know how many millions Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc. employed back then and how many families now live well because their grandparents were given a job by one of these billionaires. It's called generational advancement and that's how you improve poverty.
So no, I don't think billionaires are horrible people that hoard wealth unlike the Bernie types. However, to me there is a severe lack of balance economically right now. You don't need millions or billions of dollars to be comfortable and that's fine. But too many people don't even have the ability or resources for the bare minimum to be comfortable. That's where my concern is.
Winners and losers in our economy will always exist, I don't think it's possible for literally everyone to make it. However, you also don't want too much in the hands of too few, especially wealth.
Why don't people have the ability or resources? 99% of the time it's their own doing. Someone didn't work hard enough, someone didn't make the right decision.
Want to know how to keep poor people poor? Give them money.
Want to know how to help them? Incentivize them to work harder. If you give a guy working at KFC free things he's not going to want to improve his own life which will then improve his kid's life.
Taking $60 billion from Bezos and Zuck stifles our economy, rewards failure, and actually hurts the poor population.
Giving someone a participation trophy because they were born in the same country as Bezos and Zuck makes no sense.