There is an old saying that "if you took all the money away from all the rich people, and spread it around evenly to everyone else, within 2 or 3 years, all the formerly rich would be rich again having taken advantage of the poor who don't know how to make and keep money". This adage, although heartless to be sure, has some degree of truth to it in my view. The problem is twofold, 1) a lot of people become rich not because they are so smart but because the lack compunction, that is, they feel no remorse for taking advantage of someone else 2) people who come out of poverty often lack the skills to know how to improve their situation, such as a lack of business skills, money management and etc., not having had good role models. In my view, the role of the government should be to check the first, that is to insure that some are not taking advantage too much, obviously this is a far to complex issue to even begin to cover here, but I am just touching on the gist, the second is to lend help to those in poverty through education and training assistance. The third component is of course, the well to do who are willing and able to help and do (e.g. the Gates and others). Thank you for the excellent thought provoking post and many good comments so far.