2. Wealth and influence are always used for personal gain. That's kind of the point, no? People are incentivized to work and earn money exactly so they can use it to make their lives better.
2. If your goal in life is to maximize your own self interest without regards to how it impacts the society as a whole, then yes I agree.
Two reasons. First it's because the left lets Twitter determine their messaging and so the economic problems facing the country have been framed incorrectly with an unnecessary moral slant. The economic problems facing the poor are not a function of "wealth inequality" (the delta between rich and poor), but instead are a function of the poor having insufficient resources and services regardless of how much money the rich have. When you frame the issue as wealth inequality, then bringing Bezos's wealth down without any concomitant increase in funding for the poor is a victory as the delta is being reduced. Certainly the rich will need to be taxed more to pay for additional services necessary to improve the lives of the poor and middle class, but explicitly lowering the wealth of the rich doesn't need to be in scope to solve the problems we are facing.
Second, no one wants to admit it and by saying it this comment will get flagged, but people care because they are jealous and misinformed. They have zero understanding of what an executive's job actually entails / they don't know anyone in such a role, and as such they (incorrectly) think anyone could do it. Therefore they don't understand why executives are receiving very high levels of comp or amassing massive net worths when they don't appear to be "doing" anything complex.
Yep. It's the same jealously when people are paid millions to just shoot a ball in a hoop. Like, no. You shoot a ball into a hoop and have people who will pay $1000 to watch you do it.
One of my favourite punchlines:
Tapping with a hammer $2.00
Knowing where to tap $9,998.00
If my taxes go up to fund plants / warehouses for profitable companies I am objectively worse, am I not?
I don't see why your solution to your taxes should be "let's make the government control even more of the private sector via more regulations".
Get rid of the public sector and everything will move according to value for the customers, instead of who can bribe politicians better.