As economist Thomas Piketty, author of a new blockbuster book on inequality, tours the East Coast warning that America will soon become a place in which inherited wealth means as much — or more — as it did in Downton Abbey Britain, the White House is wasting no time pandering to young people who have grown up in breathtaking privilege. The New York Times reported that the Prez recently invited a passel of fat kittens to an invitation-only summit to "find common ground between the public sector and the so-called next-generation philanthropists, many of whom stand to inherit billions in private wealth."
Like royal courts in time of yore, when the scions of the wealthy would preen and socialize with others of their ilk, todays oligarchs-in-training are coming to DC to see and be seen, to pay and accept tribute. In order to make things appear less crass than a simple handover of cash, these young folks are invited to indulge their ruminations about improving society — which, as you might imagine, does not involve things like a global wealth tax. Or larger inheritance taxes....
The White House has been fondly known as the "People's House." Make that people with piles of cash.Party fundraising for the next generation.
AlterNet
Clueless Young Billion-Heirs Get Royal Treatment at White House
Lynn Stuart Parramore, AlterNet
Also by Parramore, Why Economist Thomas Piketty Has Scared the Pants Off the American Right
Piketty is scaring the right because he is a serious researcher and a calm, disciplined observer who writes in measured tones. But for conservatives who have based the last several decades of economic discussion on mythology, this dose of reality has come at them like a chillling blast of Arctic air.
Let them have their hysteria. It's a testimony to the utter bankruptcy of their ideas.
Memo to liberals and progressives: making Piketty into a rock star isn't helping, either. Let's let the facts speak for themselves.
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