Capital Man: Thomas Piketty is economics’ biggest sensation and fiercest critic
I've been looking forward to a discussion on Thomas Piketty by the HN crowd for a long time, I was afraid it would never get here because it would have been be too 'political' - but I'm happy this has finally made the frontpage.For those who are still unfamiliar with the name Piketty: He's a French economist (who briefly enjoyed a stint at MIT as professor before becoming disenchanted with the state of things here and returning to his home-country of France).In his recent book "Capital in the 21st Century", he's done something very big. He's pointed out that capitalism is flawed -- that inequality is not an unintended result, but rather an inherent feature of it. He's done this with an enormous amount of data.His prescription for the cure is a little controversial though: progressive taxes (up to 80%) for the rich, and a "global wealth tax" that he wants America to orchestrate. For a good summary (that talks about this main discovery that "r > g" -- that return on capital is greater than the overall economic growth), watch this talk on Bill Moyers show with Krugman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzQYA9Qjsi0 - though this submission article seems to have a nice synopsis too.As an article on NYT earlier this week said it, the book heralds a song of American socialism in the future. His findings are just too compelling to ignore, they're going to fundamentally change the tone and substance of debate we have about economic policies.