I think I mentioned higher up earlier, Ed Lin, the first two books are interesting insightful and the last two suck.
His thesis is outdated anyway. Nonetheless, let us know how you like it.
Why is it outdated? Whatâs changed since he wrote the book?
Wealth distribution has improved?
Okay picky people .
When was this Pickety Pocket Pickety thing published or revised?
Iâm up for an 80 page read if itâs currently useful which kind of varies by the day or week or latest Warren Buffett tictok video.
Heâs been roundly criticized.
The best critique I saw was from Matthew Broglie at Brookings.
Piketty didnât factor in depreciation in his estimates. Once you do that, all the wealth inequality is due to housing. And since house ownership is widespread in the US, it wonât compound to only the few, like Piketty suggested.
There are a whole bunch of different critiques as well.
But go ahead share what you read, since I didnât read the book myself.
You donât think the rich is getting richer in the US and social mobility is decreasing?
Of course any books are going to have critics but Piketty is still very much en vogue
He basically says that returns from capital wealth in comparison to income growth and the top 10% have got exponentially richer and a lot of this is concentrated in the top 1%
He says most studies on inequality focus on income rather than capital, but thatâs not really what the issue is in terms of wealth
You basically make more money by being rich than doing anything productive for the economy
After the war , the Anglo countries actually did a lot better job than Western European of reducing wealth inequality and , up until 1980 , when we went full neoliberal and lost the plot
Piketty says that we need a progressive tax on capital but hard to implement as the rich will move their money elsewhere, so need a global effort
2016
The actual book is 650 pages Iâm English and fucking 900 In French
So fuck that
I have more to say. For now, his argument isnât just that all the wealth is going to the rich, but also that the returns for the rich will compound.
But all the returns have gone to housing. And a large segment of American society owns houses, not just the top 10%.
The top 10% owns 70% of the wealth and most of that is concentrated in the top 1%. the percentage of wealth owned by the top 10% has grown exponentially since the 80s.
I donât want to have a Piketty chat, especially as you havenât read the book. So maybe read it first and then say something
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I know his argument.
Are you familiar with diminishing returns? Iâm not asking in a condescending manner, just wanted to know. You canât keep adding more and more machines and get the same result. Itâll start diminishing.
âRognlie has three main criticisms of Pikettyâs book, but his basic argument is that Piketty overestimates the level and persistence of returns to capital. In other words, he does not adequately account for diminishing returns on investments such as property, stocks, and other assets.â
Alumnus Matthew Rognlie Makes Waves With Piketty Critique | Economics Department
But the rich canât keep getting those returns forever. That is the problem ith Pikettyâs prediction.
Ok I donât want to have a conversation about this in the book thread. Why donât you read his book and come back to us
81% of top economists disagree with Piketty.
https://www.aei.org/economics/survey-81-top-economists-disagree-piketty-inequality-argument/
I donât care
cool
I already said donât want to discuss here. Especially if you havenât read the book. Also not interested in your link from a neoliberal think tank
Read the book and maybe would be an interesting conversation, otherwise itâs not