Thomas Piketty on Inequality, Trump, Wealth Redistribution

Feb.07 -- Political economist and author Thomas Piketty discusses the history of inequality and his proposals to affect wealth redistribution on "Bloomberg Markets: European Close."

[@wsl3119]

This host doesn’t seem like passed macro economics, this man is a genius, but often we only hear what we want to hear. Everyone sees the inequality but no one admits it.

[@anushyadav5413]

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[@dinandbrocker9738]

This is a very good and very important economist in France and in Europe. And he is right. (And your bridges are falling apart)

[@antonysmyth2464]

Very interesting concept, ie look at what has produced great growth in history, then apply it now. Shame the questions were mostly narrow, short term or aggressive, but well responded by the author. I like the clarity that this is not a big Govt push, just more private prosperity for more people.

[@arlenehutchinson9259]

You can't get better answers and ideas than this unbiased FACTS

[@pjauthur9869]

Great guest, more stuff like this

[@istvanzardai6318]

US pundits are trying hard to dismiss Piketty's book. 'This is a big book'...'Can I show everyone how thick this book is'...gosh as if that would mean its bad! Its full of easily readabable stories, that's why it is long. The stories and data are there to illustrate the main point. The main point is also simple: there are two kinds of important inequality. Income and ownership inequality. Income inequality is important, but the main problem is ownership inequality. This means that some people own insane amounts of lands, apartments, houses - which they rent out to other -, shares, companies, machines, AIs, and data. That is, they all own the stuff you need to make money. So, this small part of society gets to decide on everything important. They skew the system towards their own interests. And they live in the skies, while for the rest us not much changes, or it becomes even worse. There is a big myth the powerholders are protecting aggressively: that property cannot be redestributed. This is an ideology. Property should be handled in the same way as any other good. If too much is concentrated in one place and that harms the community, then it needs to be redistributed. This is the change Piketty is arguing for. All these fake 'this is a hard book', 'what is this book really about', etc. is just talk from scared chaps.

[@doggiesarus]

I am presently reading the 700 pg Piketty book. It is very readable, though long. I hope everyone gets it because it raises some pressing economic problems which can be solved using simple means, for instance using alternate indexes for assessing the wealth of the nation.

[@jooky87]

We’ll all get richer when we stop being greedy.

[@mdavis2727]

Wow man. So deep. Sanctimonious prick.

[@aleaiactaest8354]

Bernie vs Bloomberg. That's what's coming. Doubt Bloomberg has any interest in serious redistribution.

[@HannesRadke]

The rich love redistribution. Redistribution from the bottom to the top. Seriously tho, Bloomberg eats babies.

[@undertaker11ism]

Alea iacta est Even if wealth was redistributed to the bottom half, they would spend all the money and make the rich even richer than they were

[@TheJdmartinjax]

@Alea iacta est *Only until **_someone_** STOPS AND FRISKS Mike Hunt Blooperberg and explains what a giant assface shitstick he is.* _BDS: Please thump him as hard as it takes._ There is a _better-than-avg_ chance he's a complete Google AI-PAC fabrication Fake Believe creation, which would explain his faked votes and billion dollar fakebook google campaign.

[@philipt4048]

This comment didn’t age to well

[@nightoftheworld]

Bernie slaughtered on establishment altar

[@fakeapplestore4710]

These are such bad questions.

[@ab8588]

The "left wing liberal media" vs Picketty. Lol!

[@hectorcuriel8917]

The tv host is a truely awkward

[@dzurfluh2156]

Héctor Curiel those snotty hare brained interviewers should be fired. Useless effers.

[@fbenbow2197]

The way to measure growth he suggests is highly intelligent.

[@paulh2468]

The high tax rate of 80-90% on rich Americans was put in place in 1942. It was the low point of World War 2, and the rich had no choice but to pay up. The US populace was terrified of the Japanese and the Germans. Poor Americans were paying with their lives, the rich paid with their fortunes. It might take WW3, or a similar disaster, before public sentiment drives wealth appropriation. In the 1970's the unionized working class were viewed as too powerful. Rotten Ronny Raygun forced wealth to be redistributed to the rich. Wealth distribution has a long term cycle, which last peaked in the Guilded Age of the late 1800's, and their robber barons. We might have peaked again, and the cycle will head back towards redistribution to the poor. There is a good graph online showing this long-term cycle. Google it.

[@Name-jw4sj]

Paul Hurst the rich never paid 80% tax. We need to be accurate here. Yes the marginal tax rate was at 80-90% but no one paid that since the effective tax rate was far below the marginal. The effective tax rate was around 40%

[@istvanzardai6318]

It will only revert if we do something for it. What the graphs show is that at certain points masses of people lived under abominable conditions. They were so desperate that they risked getting beaten by the police, getting shot by military folks and bodyguards, and so on, to make it clear that they will enforce change.

[@paulh2468]

@@istvanzardai6318 Agreed. The question is, what amount of populist revolt will happen before change occurs? The French Revolution was pretty bad, and the end result was France ended up with a dictator, Napoleon, and the first real global war. The high tax rate of 1942 was to pay for World War 2. It was also the result of the Great Depression, where socialism and The New Deal were possible. The rich need to be vilified before there is a shift in wealth distribution. If our current global financial inequality, and the conflict between communism and democracy leads to World War 3, then the rich will be taxed to pay for that war. The rich will pay with their fortunes, the poor will pay with their lives. This is alway the way. The sad part about Piketty's analysis is that the richest families in Europe, the royals and aristocracy, have been able to hang on to their wealth for centuries, despite wars.

[@tonymiller6847]

The worms will be happy to partake of our dead bodies after homo sapiens goes extinct and the insects, jellyfish, and cockroaches take over Mother Earth. Our legacy will be delicious worm food.

[@paull244]

he hasn't obviously been to Argentina......... how well we did with such a concepts like these............

[@Truthseeker371]

Wealth inequality in the Capitalism can only be rectified by recontribution by the wealthy people to the society. The progressive taxation works to an extent that the wealthy people will have tax haven accounts offshore. Making a family trust and charity foundation also facilitate them tax concessions. They start off priviledged born into wealth. One effective mitigation is heavy inherit tax imposed on inheritance. Make it hefty enough that they have to cash in the mansions and estates. They can be utilised for the less privileged educational and lifeskill training centres as well as accommodation for the poor and homeless.

[@irishmailman2423]

There is not a "b" in jail, But there is one in bail, No lie, now you get it! Hotels, Golf courses, indebted, There is no "u" in me, But there is one in Go Fund Me.........

[@chancerobinson5112]

“Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.” Honore’ Balzac

[@aliqasim9157]

He sounds like he is originally from France.

[@rnvf.1564]

Didn't know Thomas had such hard french accent, haha :x

[@mergimcuni7684]

Rina Veliju didnt know, there are albanian woman reading thomas, meaning intereste in economics, like interested for real, glad to hear, i would like to know more about you. Ju pershendes Zoje!

[@Chachiboyss]

@@mergimcuni7684 Lol this was desperate, dude.

[@dawnglianapachuau6433]

he's so cute.

[@nunoalexandre6408]

Q.E for the People...

[@JoelBondurant]

Bitcoin

[@fredericcollette1872]

m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnSrkpVmmbOhoJY

[@angelmatos9143]

"take your share of the world & let others take theirs" George Washington Carver

[@truth135]

My biggest qualm with piketty is that he does not address the issue of merit: people do not necessarily deserve wealth, whether rich or poor. Simply taking wealth from the rich and giving to the poor is not a valid distribution of capital. It rewards nothing, and punishes something.

[@CryOfTheLyrebird]

The wealth distribution is not valid as is, so I prefer the expert’s advice toward smaller inequality and more education. Your opinion has no research, so maybe do some and write a book next time 👍🏽

[@highchi3519]

Piketty errs in relating to natural resources as static values in the computation of national wealth and income.

[@brianmoran1196]

I read this book, its OK, I don't understand how so many people think its really good.He describes inequality in "before tax" terms and doesn't seem to understand the Pareto type distribution of human capability. But there is a lot of interesting stuff in it.

[@ytyt3922]

BRIANMORAN 60% of millionnaires in the US inherited their wealth. Capability and talent have little to do with it anymore.

[@brianmoran1196]

@@ytyt3922 Which implies that 40% of millionaires earned their financial status.If you take everything from the Billionaires in the US you can run the government for 3 years...then what do you do?. And Billionaires are not sitting on their money, a lot of their wealth is invested, a lot of it is skilfully employed in philanthropic efforts and a lot of it is uselessly employed and involved in corruption and I doubt the government would do any better with it.

[@fredericcollette1872]

The problem of capitalism is the lack of maximum definitions. We can argue during many years about the individual merit (which is already completely wrong, reasons for taxes), the limits had been already overwhelmed leading to not sustainable different kinds of collapses : structural and biological.

[@brianmoran1196]

@@fredericcollette1872 I dont know what you mean, "lack of maximum definitions"

[@fredericcollette1872]

@@brianmoran1196 my mistake, lack of definition for maximum wealth, and also salary for example. We have defined a minimum in some countries but no maximum.

[@williamli8968]

This guy should look at his own country and how horrible it is.

[@fredericcollette1872]

1. First, he is not in french gouvernement or a at head of a powerful lobby 2. Your argument is as idiot as saying : don't complain there are people in worst situations. The economic system is global now and consequences are global also.

[@williamli8968]

@@fredericcollette1872 Fact is that the US has the beset economy while Europe is going down the toilet. We should not be taking advice from the French, it should be the other way around.

[@troywalkertheprogressivean8433]

@@williamli8968 no, the economy is failing, only the market grows, cuz it feeds on infinite funding from the fed reserve/central banks

[@fredericcollette1872]

@@williamli8968 with a poverty rate higher in United States than french one.. I don't think so. This "economic" system fosters especially the same people, a transnational oligarchic system indeed.

[@aesma2522]

French people and US people are not the same. Put French people instead of US people, and Trump's head would be on a spike by now (along with most politicians, left and right). France is objectively a great country to live in. Some French people live in a paradise, believing it's hell.

[@AparicioTomas]

Put things in context first about this guy: this is a radical socialist. He became popular fundamentally because what he proposed is quite attractive to the state interests and politicians looking for power expansion in the mid-term. This guy grow in the most socialist modern Western country in EU today where the state takes literally 56% of the country total economy and it's behind the scenes in bankruptcy full of unequal policies and laws from its government. France is not doing better than Germany, UK, Switerland or Netherlands, yet these people defend that taking more money from people with coercion is going to make things better. That's what a parasite mentality would have. We are prosperous beings socially speaking because we can act independently with individual freedom that enables creativity and innovation, not because we are centralize organized and controlled like ants. This guy defends 80% income tax for everyone and is so naive to think that society is like an static photo that won't react and respond to tyranny. Of course people will react and try to scape from it. Paradoxically for him thesis, the most impacted by this won't be the rich, but the poor who will not benefit from rich investment and value creation. And we all know that rich people has endless resources to scape from collectivism in the most legal way.

[@ottomanmaldonado4522]

Buuk 🤣🤣😭😭

[@MarcPagan]

Both Price's Law and IQ are real, and explain earnings disparities ...in the USA, those with similar IQs, acquire similar levels of wealth, and career success... regardless of race, ethnicity, or education/school district.

[@fredericcollette1872]

I would like to know your sources for these such deterministic thoughts. Equal chances of success is a lie based on the birth and networking from the family and living spaces. This is not the low ratio of people going out from poor places to realise the legendary American dream that will prove the contrary.

[@fakeapplestore4710]

what a stupid fuck lmao

[@Lebronwski]

@@fredericcollette1872 networking and family connections and wealth has to have been achieved, it doesn’t come out of no where.

[@fredericcollette1872]

@@Lebronwski if you wish we can weigh down together to debate about determinism of people and lives. Contrary to gravity law context we don't fall in emptiness without interactions.

[@stephenkenmey861]

I like how this guy has no problem ignoring the history of socialism. The rise of inequality coincides nicely with the lefts removal of personal responsibility in ones life and resulting consequences. I’d like this professor to devote some studies to the many failures of social engineering in the last 60 years that had grand intentions. His prescription is just more of the same.

[@stephenkenmey861]

I do realize that. Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have been writing about the economic impact of government intervention for the last 60 years in society. Rather then cherrypicked data to support a conclusion already predetermined as this author does the 2 gentlemen previously mentioned looked at the facts first and let the facts dictate their conclusions.

[@trschnell]

Stephen, what books or articles by these two do you suggest for someone that wants to familiarize themselves with the lefts removing personal responsibilities coinciding with the rise inequality?

[@piotrnowak9904]

yeah, good point, socialism was great, as a richest and happyest societies is a in a socialists countries eg noway, denmark. Communist not so much, but thanks to the american and british imperialism

[@CryOfTheLyrebird]

Your opinion is a very lazy take, much like the dynastic wealth and rich people you defend

[@Glickan]

Soft-hearted Frenchy.

[@Arthagnou]

so he is another re-distributive socialist....has he ever had a job or started a business or is he another ivory tower type? I like how they hide old ideas with new words....Expropriation, Redistribute blah blah