In Boston this past weekend, the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans fighting to raise tax rates — for themselves! — and HuffPost Live hosted French economist Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the 21st Century, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose memoir A Fighting Chance has just been released. The two superstars discuss why it is that the rich are getting richer, and everybody else is getting poorer, and most importantly, what we can do to fight it.
Patriotic Millionaire Dan Berger sees the forum as a step in the right direction: “Piketty’s research represents a profound critique of the current economic orthodoxy that the market system (and associated political economy) is capable of delivering rising incomes and standards of living to the vast majority of households in society, while Warren’s book demonstrates that there are two worlds and two sets of rules (and welfare) in America; one for the wealthy and one for everybody else. As they suggest, trickle down theories of wealth distribution are little more than magical thinking, and they have led to increased economic inequality. It is time for a reality-based public discussion on how move to greater equality and shared prosperity, along with a look at the high cost of not doing so, morally, socially, politically, and economically.”