A who's-who's of prominent economists in government and academia have all said that runaway inequality harms economic growth, including:
- Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin [8] (more [9])
- Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair [10]
- Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman [11]
- Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz [12]
- One of America's leading economists, Robert Shiller [13]
- Former chief IMF economist Raghuram Rajan [14]
- Former U.S. Secretary of Labor and UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich [14]
- Stanford University professor John Taylor [15]
- Northeastern University professor Robert Gordon [16] (more [17])
- University of Oregon professor Mark Thoma [14]
- University of California professor Emmanuel Saez [14]
- Paris School of Economics professor Thomas Piketty [14]
- Famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith [18]
- Harvard Business School professor David Moss [19]
- Paris School of Economics professor Romain Rancière [20]
- London School of Economics professor Robert Wade [21]
- University of Notre Dame professor David Ruccio [22]
- Harvard professor Lawrence Katz [23]
- Arkansas State University professor Christopher Brown [24]
- Global economy and development division director at Brookings and former economy minister for Turkey, Kemal Dervi [14]
- Societe Generale investment strategist and former economist for the Bank of England, Albert Edwards [25]
- World Bank economist Branko Milanovic [26]
- Deputy Division Chief of the Modeling Unit in the Research Department of the IMF, Michael Kumhof [20]
- Former executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, senior policy analyst in the White House Office of Policy Development, and deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department, Bruce Bartlett [27]
- IMF economist Andrew Berg [28] (IMF economist)
- IMF economist Jonathan Ostry [28]
- Federal Reserve chairman from 1934 to 1948, Marriner S. Eccles [18]
- And many others [29]
The father of free market economics - Adam Smith [30] - didn't believe that inequality should be a taboo subject. And even the inequality-creator-in-chief - the Bernanke [31] - has admitted that inequality harms the productivity and efficiency of the economy (video continues here [32]).
Numerous investors and entrepreneurs agree that runaway inequality hurts the economy, including:
- More than half of all international investors [33] polled by Bloomberg
- Billionaire and legendary investment adviser Jeremy Grantham [34]
- Billionaire and hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller [25]
- Billionaire Bill Gates [25]
- Billionaire Warren Buffet [35]
- Billionaire Nick Hanauer [36]
Numerous other billionaires [37] and top investors [38]