Wow, what an entertaining, interesting, and, at times, depressing read! A few thoughts:
1. One of the big frustrations that we (people) tend to practice is that we tend to fall back on black or white situations. I'm not going to add in the quotes but people here have talked about 500k being far more than enough and people have said that if we increase taxes all of the rich will leave/quit. Well those just aren't true. In reality people are not all the same and what may be too much tax for one person isn't the maximum for the next, and may not be close to the maximum for a third person. Every tenth of a percent increase in tax increases the number of people that quit, but it certainly won't be everyone. A possible alternative would be to increase the tax rate at a percent or two a year until we decide that the benefit is outweighed by the cost.
2. There is a lot of talk of politicking. I would agree that nothing will happen. My suggestion to this issue is to remove the incentives for politics. Increase campaign donation transparency and add term limits to the Senate and Congress so that people are less incentivized to sway politicians. At least don't let them invest in a lifer.
3. I hate waste and inefficiency. I wonder the amount of waste (time, money, energy) that exists due to our current tax system. I mean how many billions are spent each year to draft complicated laws, that need to be enacted by bloated bureaucracy, and acted on and protected by entire professions. If our tax system was simpler, we may be capable, as a society, of spending money on truly important things. Talk about a government hand out.
4. Wealthy people should realize that there is a growing tide of frustration and anger over inequality in the US. Sometimes the best strategy is to placate the masses before they take matters into their own hands. There have been numerous instances of this in the past, and there's no reason to believe the future will be different. And I say that as a future wealthy person (as I and most people here are targeting a number for net worth that is probably higher than a large percentage of Americans).