-_o
Actually wait...that's a slightly good idea. The rich should have to spend a year or two at a low to lower middle class status in order to see what it's like and develop a bit of empathy.
And Gas, though my original comment was harsh, I have a strong dislike for inherited wealth, since it creates a class of idle rich who never have to work a day in their lives, becoming nothing more than useless parasites on our system, people who cannot grasp the concept of personal failure since they have been protected all their lives. You should have to work for any kind of luxury, it should never be handed to you. Wealth passed on should first be used to pay for a proper burial of the deceased, and then if possible provide a secure net for the widow/widower and their children if they are still dependent minors. I see no reason why a person who's never earned X-Million dollars should receive that just because someone kicked the bucket. The government should promise a secure future with inherited wealth, it should not allow for the propagation of trust-fund kids.
Furthermore, Capitalism has failed us just as we have failed it. Relying upon the current way our economy is geared is a horrible idea, since it's right now geared towards creating a bubble market which inevitably collapses in upon itself. Neither would pure socialism be a good idea, but a mixed system would probably solve a lot of our ills instead of praying to the Free Market like it's some kind of capricious deity.
The free market, when overseen by a regulatory government whose only aim is to increase competition (as opposed to foster monopoly, ESPECIALLY government-controlled monopoly) is a self-balancing system. Compare banking (especially mortgage banking), a de-facto government run institution (after all, freddy and fannie were always there to catch you if you fell, so you better be giving mortgages to people who can't actually afford them, OR ELSE) with telephone and cell phone service. At one point, there WAS a monopoly on phone service, held by AT&T. The government found this to be toxic to a competitive free market, so they broke them up into the baby bells, setting the policy which has led to the united states having one of the, if not the, most diverse, competitive, affordable and advanced telephony markets in the world.
The government needs to pop the bubbles before they get too big, not continue to inflate them artificially by devaluing our currency with artificially low interest rates and printing money out of thin air to spend faster and faster.
As for sticking it to the trust fund kiddies - the Fair Tax (fairtax.org) would do that very well, seeing as how every time they spent some of their obscene wealth it'd be taxed at 20%... and they do a lot of spending.
However, the whole "indolent trust fund paris hilton" is a fallacious appeal to emotion. It's a standard chestnut in the arsenal of the class-warmonger, whose basis is entirely emotional and not so much factual. For every blue blood Vanderbilt handing down millions to their non-productive progeny to perpetuate down the family line, there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of "new millionaires" who started anywhere from modest to nonexistant means (many of whom are legal immigrants), work their way up the ladder or start a new business, employ thousands, and when they die, the government (which, again, is NOT the country, is NOT "the people") decides to take his money and decide how much his family gets? Could this BE more wealth-envious?
This is anathema to the entire mindset upon which this country was based - the sancrosanct inviolable nature of private property.
Instead of getting jealous over others, try and keep in mind that what the US government is supposed to do is enable a socioeconomic environment where this can be achieved by anyone with the drive and the vision. When you turn Washington into nothing more than an approved way to rob the achievers and producers to transfer what they have earned to those who have not earned it, you are simply replacing a minimally occurring "evil" (the "old money" family line) with a much more sinister and pandemic evil - the destruction of a system and environment that allows for the creation of wealth in the first place.... in effect, making everybody poor with no recourse.
But then, the clever always find ways around such things. For one thing, they can leave. Ask California or New York how it's working out for them, taxing the ever-living-shit out of the rich? Here's a hint - the rich left, and suddenly the state governments have found it a lot harder to balance the books when the people who were paying all the taxes left.
No, the assertion that you've made in the past is that taxes are evil and we shouldn't have to pay them, which is unreasonable. Countries need money to operate and unfortunately for the Rich, they have more of it than most of us and now it's their time to pony up their fair share. Yes, 50% IS unreasonable. Of that we are both in agreement... but it's not unreasonable for the Government to expect them to pay something and I'm not exactly going to shed tears for the Millionaire families having to pay out when Daddy dies.
This is the wealth-envy class-warfare fallacy I'm talking about. I never said ALL TAXES ARE EVIL. A level of taxation is necessary to see to the operation of government... but we're WELL beyond that point. The federal government didn't get 12 trillion dollars into debt merely seeing to its own operating expenses. We're way, WAAAAY into "redistribution of wealth" territory here.