White House rolls out red carpet for French socialist economist

French economist Thomas Piketty warns that modern-day capitalism leads to unsustainable levels of inequality. While he is often linked to France's Socialist Party, his writings have made him unusually popular in the US.

Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” has only just been translated into English – several weeks ahead of schedule, due to popular demand – and the New York Times’s star columnist Paul Krugman has already described it as “the most important economics book of the year — and maybe of the decade”.

The French economist’s current US book tour is turning into something of a red carpet event. So far this week, he has met the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors as well as Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew. “The Democratic Party, especially the Obama administration, has been in contact with us and using our findings for a long time,” Piketty told AFP in Washington.

The Paris School of Economics scholar argues that in the long run, earnings from possessions such as property and financial assets grow faster than the rest of the economy – especially workers’ wages. This, he warns, leads to deepening inequalities with serious social consequences. His closeness with members of France's ruling Socialist Party have placed him firmly on the left of the French political spectrum.

The belief among free-market economists that capitalism will regulate itself and lift the general population towards higher incomes is flawed, according to Piketty, because it is based on observations made during the 20th century, a war-ridden age unlike any other. Piketty’s main suggestion to break the inequality cycle is to impose a worldwide tax on capital, which he acknowledges would be very difficult to achieve.

http://www.france24.com/en/20140416-usa-thomas-piketty-lew-capital-21-century-income-inequality/

But his own country has sky high unemployment.

 

I wonder if his observations are skewed by the fact that governments have tried, with varying success, to inflate asset bubbles for the past 25 years. So of course those with hard assets, particularly if they were highly leveraged, have profitted disproportionately.

So his solution of course is to stop inflating asset bubbles? Uh, no. He wants the same governments who have created the problem to get even more money via a global transactions tax. A tax which of course would have the biggest negative effect on the US. No wonder Obama is listening.

This is the financial equivalent of the global warming scare campaign. Create a fake crisis and try to take advantage of it to get someone else's money.

 

Of course they are.

The economic charlatans and wizards will all hail this book as the second coming of Christ, because they realize they're at the end of their road. The wizardy doesn't have much time left. They'll ignore inconvenient things like high unemployment, etc.

 

I'd point out that they'll ignore ANYTHING that isn't important to their agendas.

 

TV's 'Trapper John' Whacks the Media: They're 'Constipated by Their Own Ideology'

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-n...-constipated-their-own-ideology#ixzz2zZAgEmUw

 

No doubt because of all the socialism...

The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest
APRIL 22, 2014
By David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy

"The American middle class, long the most affluent in the world, has lost that distinction.

"While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades.

"After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.

"The numbers, based on surveys conducted over the past 35 years, offer some of the most detailed publicly available comparisons for different income groups in different countries over time. They suggest that most American families are paying a steep price for high and rising income inequality.

"Although economic growth in the United States continues to be as strong as in many other countries, or stronger, a small percentage of American households is fully benefiting from it. Median income in Canada pulled into a tie with median United States income in 2010 and has most likely surpassed it since then. Median incomes in Western European countries still trail those in the United States, but the gap in several — including Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden — is much smaller than it was a decade ago.

"In European countries hit hardest by recent financial crises, such as Greece and Portugal, incomes have of course fallen sharply in recent years.

"The income data were compiled by LIS, a group that maintains the Luxembourg Income Study Database. The numbers were analyzed by researchers at LIS and by The Upshot, a New York Times website covering policy and politics, and reviewed by outside academic economists.

"The struggles of the poor in the United States are even starker than those of the middle class. A family at the 20th percentile of the income distribution in this country makes significantly less money than a similar family in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland or the Netherlands. Thirty-five years ago, the reverse was true.

"LIS counts after-tax cash income from salaries, interest and stock dividends, among other sources, as well as direct government benefits such as tax credits.

The United States’ once-strong lead in middle class incomes is shrinking

 

I think that applies to anybody who has an agenda.... Which is pretty much everybody...

 

Yep, two countries headed in opposite directions, 1 country under conservative leadership,(Canada) is trying to cut taxes and allow the private sector to work, as well as allowing new found ways of drilling energy to run unabated.

The other country(USA)under radical left wing leadership has decided to tax the wealthy as much as possible, and try to use the government to force equality, on top of using the EPA to bludgeon the enrgy sector.

And guess which ones middle class is doing better?

 

Canada is still more socialistic than the US. Even so, other countries, greatly more socialistic, are also compared.

 

What a surprise. We let in 30 million or so people from latin america and africa, and liberals are shocked, shocked that average incomes are not keeping pace with countries which actually have rational immigration policies.

The whole article is bull. Anyone who has spent any time in the UK for example will tell you the same income goes a hell of a lot further here.