This is a big problem with current envy-driven politics surrounding wealth.

This is not envy driven. Not wanting bonuses for bankers who were bailed out by public money has to do with bonus-driven bad decisions being a fundamental cause of the crash that cost everyone else trillions of dollars in wealth, economic growth, unemployment benefits and bailouts. Look up "moral hazard", and note that they are up to the same shenanigans that got us into this mess.

Furthermore, if the banks are, effectively, government guaranteed, then bankers should be paid as government employees. Greater pay is for greater skill and risk, their risk is borne by everyone but themselves and as for skill... So it is only proper (and not "envy") for the taxpayers to get those bonuses.

..old money children who have inherited a fortune but seem to have contributed little of value themselves

This is also a huge economic and social problem, no need to invoke "envy". The moneyed elites have started to decouple themselves from the rest of the world. I went to a prep school in Michigan where this was quite apparent, and scary. There was also a recent study that warned that this decoupling of the elites from everyone else could lead to (or contribute heavily to) the collapse of civilization [1]. For an artistic rendition, see "Elysium". What's so scary about that film is not the dystopian outlook, but rather how real a lot of it already feels.

They're envious of highly paid sporting or artistic celebrities who get more salary in a week than most of us make in a year.

Again, there are good economic arguments for this being a problem. Pay way in excess of the ability to consume creates a huge overhang in liquidity with which people start to gamble in the international financial casino, creating instability[1] See also "Giant Pool of Money"[2]

And so they support punitive rates of tax for those who earn noticeably more than they do

The rates are not punitive. They are stabilizing. Where this rate starts is a good question to which I don't have a good answer.

Unfortunately, what that usually does in practice is hit highly qualified professionals or modestly successful entrepreneurs

Not according to any statistics I have seen. References?

However, the people these punitive taxes don't hit are the ones that the popular moneylust craves, because the super-rich are the people who have the flexibility to move their assets and/or themselves around to avoid high-tax environments. Absent serious international co-operation to overcome the naturally competitive tax environment that today's globalised society creates, these people will continue to be super-rich no matter what

So should we not do this because it is wrong or because it won't work? It seems it can't work if we don't start somewhere. Certainly finance has globalized, so it seems it is time for enforcement to catch up. This seems to start happening, see the crackdown on Switzerland as a tax-haven/money-laundering center.

[1] http://www.sesync.org/sites/default/files/resources/moteshar...

[2] http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

[3] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/t...