Author Archive
Madoff on Social Security Bask
Hey kids: I’ve heard people claim that Bernie Madoff referred to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme–and he should know! However, I can’t find an actual citation. There are a billion articles of people talking about SS and Madoff, but I can’t find Madoff himself talking about it. Any help?
Read moreThe Entire Inequality Debate Summed Up In One Chart
I missed this on my first look, but the most widely cited PowerPoint presentation of all-time–namely Saez-Zucman (2014)–has a chart that explicitly contrasts Saez’s latest findings with his 2004 paper (co-authored with Kopczuk). Here’s the slide: We see the same pattern as I pointed out earlier, where the Saez (2004) and (2014) estimates move in […]
Read moreBTW, That New and Allegedly Definitive Saez-Zucman Result IS A POWERPOINT SHOW
Phil Magness tipped me off to this with his innocent Facebook query, wherein he politely asked: Can anyone find an actual paper that explains how Saez-Zucman (2014) gets their results, which–we are assured by Piketty and by Krugman, plus a host of lesser fans–demonstrate quite definitively that Piketty gets the basic story right in his […]
Read moreAn Even Better Post From Krugman on the Wonderful Veterans Health Administration
From back in 2006. Some excerpts: American health care is desperately in need of reform. But what form should change take? Are there any useful examples we can turn to for guidance? Well, I know about a health care system that has been highly successful in containing costs, yet provides excellent care. And the story […]
Read moreWe Are the 99.9999%!
My latest at Mises Canada has some Krugman funnies and I also showcase this chart, followed by my commentary from the post: This chart shows the percentage of wealth in the United States held by the 0.01%. That’s not a typo. I’m not talking about “the 1%,” and I’m not even talking about “the 0.1%.” […]
Read moreMore on Piketty
==> Here’s Piketty responding to the initial FT critique. (HT2 Daniel Kuehn) ==> Here’s Giles (the author of the FT critique) elaborating. ==> Here’s Magness with some more oddities, but I think Piketty might have explained what was going on here, in the first piece linked above. (Note, to say he “explained what was going […]
Read moreBook Review of Piketty
So you can mentally prepare yourself, here is a short (about 1,000 words) review of Piketty. Next week I’ll publish a much longer review with quotations from the book. The good thing about this “Rare” review is that if you get bored, you can click on a slideshow of Victoria’s Secret models. The best part: […]
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