What a lightweight and snide discussion of Piketty by Bernard Salt in The Australian today. I've never read Salt's column's much - I found most of them boring - but I didn't really know his political leanings til now.
Also on Piketty, I was interested to read this blog entry on debate now going on about inheritance and wealth taxes. As I have written before, I had not even realised that the US had such a tax, but the blog entry explains why that may be - very few people pay it. The British inheritance tax is much larger (I think), but how many people may escape it by positioning money in off shore accounts is something I don't know.
I presume there has been a lot of economic work done on inheritance tax (in fact, I see there was a 2013 paper co-authored by Piketty with the alluring title "A Theory of Optimal Inheritance Tax") , but it's something we never hear about as a prospect for Australia.
Perhaps that should change?
You realize , you fuckwit, that even while he criticizes the US, there is a limit in Europe in handing over money to charity at death to no more than 50%!
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