Why Don’t the Unemployed Get Off Their Couches?
Why it is ludicrous to expect the unemployed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Read more...Category Archives: Income disparity
A Reflection on Piketty’s “Rentiers Always Win” or r > g
The Piketty postulate that r > g, meaning the return on wealth exceeds overall economic growth, is simply not a universal truth. This post provides a tidy and accessible debunking.
Read more...Piketty’s Wealth Tax Won’t Hurt Investment
Transfers don’t matter for investment, and most savings are transfers. Thus Piketty’s wealth tax won’t hurt investment.
Read more...Michael Hudson: The EU Parliament Elections as a Vote Against the Oligarchs
The US press and newscasts make it appear that Europeans have voted against poor immigrants and foreigners. What they voted against was the super-rich, the oligarchy.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: Has Thomas Piketty Pulled a Reinhart and Rogoff?
I don’t think that this is a Reinhart and Rogoff moment that discredits the underlying thesis of Piketty’s book. Rather I think that it is just another lesson in data analysis for us all. Lies, lies and damned statistics, as they say
Read more...Financial Times Finds “Many” Errors in Piketty Analysis, Argues They Undermine His Thesis
Chris Giles of the Financial Times has charged Thomas Piketty with making Reinhart and Rogoff-like data and methodological errors in his best-selling book on wealth inequality, Capital in the 21st Century.
Read more...Widespread Signs of Credit Market Froth
I’m getting a bad case of déjà vu from reading the Financial Times over the last week.
Read more...Is the Piketty Enthusiasm Bubble Subsiding?
Although Piketty’s Capital has garnered a great deal of praise, the criticisms were initially overlooked. They are finally getting the attention they warrant.
Read more...Randy Wray: Forget Taxes for Redistribution – What to do About Inequality
Yves here. A lot of people argue for redistributive taxes, contending that they were very successful in the golden age of the American middle class, from the end of World War II through the Reagan era, in constraining the concentration of income and wealth at the top. However, that tax structure reflected a broad social consensus in favor of fostering prosperity for ordinary Americans, in no small measure to keep Communist impulses at bay.
In Yankee terms, Wray’s argument against using taxes to create a more egalitarian distribution of income is “You can’t get there from here”.
Read more...UK Survey Finds High Levels of Depression and Desperation Among the Young
High levels of un- and underemployment among the young are undermining their mental health. And the damage might be lasting.
Read more...How the Democrats Are Using Piketty’s Book on Inequality
How Democrats are using Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, to bolster the party’s flagging fortunes.
Read more...Piketty’s Wealth Tax is Real, and It Works
Most economists deride Thomas Piketty’s recommendation of a wealth tax as the remedy to inequality. It might help if they did some empirical research.
Read more...The Height of World War I Servicemen
Height in England before World War II was seen as a class marker. But is that the whole story?
Read more...Rhode Island Senate Considering “Maximum Wage” Legislation
Why Rhode Island’s maximum wage proposal is a potential big step toward reducing income inequality.
Read more...Americans Raid 401(k)s, Replacing Home Equity Withdrawals as Way to Make Ends Meet
It’s been creepy to see economists and the financial media cheering the re-levering by American households as a sign that they economy is on the mend and consumers are regaining their will to shop. The number of Americans who are tapping into their 401 (k) accounts is proof that the financial health of ordinary Americans is far from robust.
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