Egalite, Liberte, Piketty! - a furiously French take on inequality by a Frenchman who is furious at the rich

Thomas Piketty and Emmanual Saenz are two Frenchmen that are the acknowledged experts on income inequality data around the world.  Piketty has just published a book and did an interview with some fawning doe-eyed Bambi from New Yorker magazine.  Here's a rather more jaundiced take on le Piketeer's product by Jim Pet...Pethokou...crap, that Jim guy with the stupid Greek last name that I can't spell.

Predictiably for a Parisian academic, Piketty interprets the increasing levels  of inequality in our society in doctrinaire Marxist terms and classic question begging style:  capital gets more and more concentrated over time because it compounds at a higher rate than GDP growth (where does it say that it has to do this? are you making an interest rate forecast or revealing scripture?)  and ultimately results in massive inequality, chaos and I guess Bolshie revolutions or at least some salutary Guillotiningss of a Koch brother or two.

At Last!  After 100 million dead and the collapse of regime after regime
I am now vindicated by two....French academic economists.
Wait, that can't be right.

My problem with these guys is that they are ideologues and they don't do all of the analysis that they should and make invidious and inaccurate cross sectional and longitudinal comparisons.  In particular they misuse American numbers - a big part of American inequality is due to the immense diversity of the nation, particularly in cost of living terms which they, of course, don't adjust for. And there's a secular phenomenon going on there - housing prices soaring in certain cities so real standards of living are much less impressive vs. 'poorer' states with lower housing prices.  All this serves to exaggerate inequality.

Although it is fun interacting with neo Marxist ideas that actually have data and analysis behind them rather than dancing yet another version of the Old Trotsky-Trot that always makes me want to take an ice pick and plunge......   Well anyway, so how then should we live? or what should we do about all of the meanies out there? Clearly all of BHO's minwage and labor standards small ball is irrelevant and manipulative if not actively malicious in that cool kids in high school inviting the dorks to the big party except that there wasn't one sort of way.

In contrast Piketty says we should tax the Bejesus out of wealth and unearned incomes - go all Clement Attlee on their asses.  Which is charming hailing from a France whose rich, talented and ambitious have been launching themselves at high velocity across the English channel so much that London is the second biggest French city.  Personally I think they should go back to the popular front days, create a shadowy, conspiratorial party, pretend that they're in the majority and seize power (in lots of heroic poses so you make those kick-ass posters), killing and looting the rich and trashing the country.  It is a sure fire way to reduce income inequality:  destroy the institutions that produce the wealth to begin with.

I hazard to mention this because Left Bank intellectuals like Piketty and Saenz  might take me literally.

PS:  it is a testament to the shallowness and intellectual poverty of the American Left that they've outsourced the substance of what - now that they've 'saved' healthcare - is their 'numero uno' issue to Bolshie garlic eaters.  And I thought everyone said BHO was brilliant Harvard grad or something.