I'm a chemical engineer Tom. The traditionally highest starting pay BS degree field. Unfortunately it does not have as high as ceiling as many other engineering and technical fields due to limited opportunities to start new businesses. I'd love to run my own business, but the startup cost for chemical plants are a rather formidable startup barrier. I get to see both the assinine and the plus side of industry regulation. There are stupid regulations designed primarily to plug loopholes that have silly negative consequences and valuable ones that are designed to prevent past abuses.

As for world views you are not getting through to me because you refuse to see how the taking from others runs bothways in the rich versus poor issue. You and I are neither and should have a more objective view despite a desire to be wealthy. Most American's even the poor share that desire and therefore do not have nearly the anti-rich bias portrayed by conservatives. They are however quite capable of looking at a growing income gap and asking is that fair when these people are already highly paid for their contributions?

I'm not so sure salaries shouldn't be put to a vote of coworkers out of a fixed pie since coworkers often seem to have a better feel for relative contributions than managers, but they sure shouldn't be subject to a public vote. I did not mean to imply you didn't deserve to make a good living by the way, just that if you had managed to become truly rich through failed business ventures then something was really fishy. A person deserves the going rate in their field and even a signiificant premium for participating in risky startup ventures. They also deserve to truly become rich if the risk succeeds.

There is always the potential for abuse in any system where anyone gets to decide what is fair economic compensation just as the feudal nobles, robber barrons of yor, and communist beurocrats abused their power. In the absence of a democratic government that power resides either with the wealthy or thugs (often one and the same in third world countries). I'll trust a true and EDUCATED democracy to be fairer than either of those two groups.

You seem to have missed the importance of the words "all men are created equal" in our nations history. In truth that is a false statement, but an honored one none the less. In the modern era, most people have interpreted it as a demand for equality of opportunity. Pol Pot's Cambodia certainly does not match the equality of opportunity standard I have tried to promote here.

Regards,
Mark