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Statistics: He shows that wealth and equality is actually much wider than income equality. Because if you earn income you have to pay taxes on it and rich people, the 1% don't like to pay taxes so they basically 'expense' most of their income. They expense it as interest. They expense it as depreciation. There are all sorts of expenses, but he (Piketty) shows statistically, in almost every country, not only that income and wealth are getting wider and wider apart - the 1% versus the rest of the economy. But it's not just the 10% that's richer than the bottom half or the bottom 20%, its the 1% that has the vast majority of the wealth and controls the world stock markets and the bond markets. Since 1980 there's been quite a turnaround and the 1% have bought government as if government were sort of like a factory that yo can make profits on and you can get much more profits by buying a government than you can ever get by buying a property or real estate.
Of course this is all true... Why wouldn't one want to tax shelter/expense/depreciate as much as possible? Or affect favorable govt. policy through legal means? It really isn't that big of a secret - the 99% are privy to this information and often have the means to do this, but most choose not to pursue new money-making/power-making paths as, for them, it is too great of an investment of their time, energy, study, work, drive, risk, stress, etc....
The truly wealthy and powerful are not all on the Forbes list. This wealth is not so easily identifiable. Whatever taxation system is in place will be worked by those who truly have the means and the money. The smart, savvy, highly competitive will follow the money/power in industry choice/location. They will play the game and create/take advantage of market opportunities - wherever it may be.
Adjustments to things like income, allowable expenses, depreciation will hit the upper middle classes - highly paid professionals drawing high income, small investors, small business owners (yes, they are job creators). These are precisely the things that have provided the opportunities that have allowed the self-made to move up from the middle classes.
sorry, but this is garbage analysis. "the 1%" people talk about aren't the top 1% of income-earners, they're the top 1% of wealth.
Haven't kept precise track, but my impressions are that the top 1% by income is referred to much more often than the top 1% by wealth. There are better, newer data about income than about wealth. That may play a part in it. Many people assume an at least approximate congruence between income and wealth. That may play a part as well.
All sensible people are atheists, though in some cases good sense prompts them to pretend not to be. Meanwhile, gobbledygook deflections do not advance the cause of anything. Political and economic science are different disciplines. The fact that on some level, they each study the actions and reactions of human beings is not enough to make them the same, else they be suddenly swamped in an avalanche of incoming other disparate disciplines as well.
Do you actually have a point about the subject matter rather than this continuous babel, taking every opportunity to make some tangential remark? No one cares about your worthless lay man's opinion. Since you are a nameless , faceless nobody, you are required to construct an argument to demonstrate its truth or cite authoritative sources.
You said:
I said at least partially wrong, and the list I would compile would be as long as the list of topics he has written about.
What a pusillanimous concoction. Why bother?
Name one non trivial position he takes and challenge it. If not then what are you even doing here?
The nature of the debt represented by US Treasury securities does not vary with the identity of the note holder. Payments of interest and ultimately principal are equally owed as scheduled to any holder of record, including the FED.
And what does the Fed do with that money?
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