One widely recognized measure of equality/inequality is the GINI index. The US CIA (see CIA website) contains a comparative list of GINI's for most countries in the world. Extreme inequality in income distribution tends to correlate with societal dysfunction, i.e. high levels of crime and/or civil war.

Both Bill Gates and Gates' father are on record as opposing the most recent Bush Administration tax cuts - the benefits of which are heavily slanted towards the richest Americans.

Of course Bill Gates doesn't care about the tax cut. Our nation taxes income not wealth. Bill Gates is wealthy but his income is actually quite small.

And there you go talking about income "distribution". Income is not distributed, it is earned. That is the same mindset that makes people say the "benefit" of the tax cut is slanted toward the "richest Americans", like its a bad thing. No shit sherlock, rich people pay more taxes and thus get a larger cut.

People that pay little or no taxes don't (or shouldn't) get anything. It's hard to cut something that isn't there.

And there you go confusing (unintentionally, I sincerely hope) the meaning of the word "distribution" again. You seem to think (or want to imply) that something can ONLY be "distributed" intentionally or deliberately. If so, someone needs to distribute you a dictionary.

Income is distributed throughout a population the same sense that autumn leaves are distributed around the yard -- concentrations here and there (especially near trees), some areas with hardly any leaves at all... talking about the "distribution" of leaves in the yard in no way suggests someone carefully placing each leaf in its own special place. It's just looking at the overall pattern of where the leaves are.

By the way, the nation USED to tax wealth in the form of the Estate Tax, which Gates also opposed the elimination of -- but there, you'll just say "of course he wouldn't care, he'd be dead," so whatever. If the opinions of the richest man in the world on the taxation of the richest people in the world hold no weight with you when they run against yours, I wonder whose would? And the comment about Gates' income being "quite small" is just amazing. How rich are YOU that his mere millions a year is "quite small"?

As for the pious second part about all income being earned (as opposed to "distributed" in the intentional sense), well, what exactly do you mean by "earned"? If we're playing Dueling Dictionaries, it means "to receive as return for effort and especially for work done or services rendered". Your emphasis on "earned" income suggests a moral component in your mind -- these people WORKED for their astronomical incomes, so they DESERVE them! You appear to discount completely money's ability, beyond a certain point, to make itself. (Give a man $100 and he'll eat for a couple of weeks. Give a man $1,000,000,000 and he can live off interest for life.) Never mind the "work" of executives in the not-so-far-gone rash of corporate scandals, who profited to the combined tune of BILLIONS, and even despite exposure (requiring a few sacrificial scapegoats) have gotten away cleanly with most of it. Earned, indeed.

Finally, the comment on the naturalness of tax-cuts going to the richest few only makes sense if you pretend that reductions can't be TARGETED at those with less money. It is perfectly possible to reduce taxes on low and middle income brackets while maintaining or even raising them on the highest ones (raising, incidentally, making it possible to lower them even more for everyone else, if low taxes is your top priority). Of course, it is similarly possible to target those at the top, which is exactly what was done.

"Haven't we already given money to rich people? This second tax cut's gonna do it again . . . shouldn't we be giving money to the middle, won't people be able to say, ‘You did it once, and then you did it twice, and what was it good for?’" -- G.W.Bush
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml

Well, that was fun. It'll probably never be seen anyway, let alone read by anyone, but I needed the practice. : )