Matt Bruenig — Kevin Hassett Misrepresents Piketty

AEI’s Kevin Hassett knew Piketty was wrong before he ever read him. There is no possible world in which Kevin Hassett did anything else but say Piketty was wrong. That’s fine, but what’s not fine is this shit: 

If you look at what’s been going on in his data, then the share of income going to capital in the United States has gone up over time. And what he does is he gives a theory for why that is going to continue. And eventually capital is going to have everything unless we have 80 percent tax rates and so on. 

As with Larry Summers, Justin Wolfers, and so many countless others, Hassett is just not accurately describing Piketty. Like those others, his confusions/misrepresentations are extraordinarily basic. 

Here are the errors:

AEI says it all.

MattBruenig | Politics
Kevin Hassett Misrepresents Piketty
Matt Bruenig