From a critique of pure capitalist algorithmic frontrunning (which was at the top Amazon bestseller spot [9] until a few days ago)...
[10]
... we go to a critique of pure capitalism [11].
Which of course, is merely a rehash of a critique of all capitalism as expounded some 150 years ago by this book.
And to think all it took was 147 years of 'capitalism' for the circle to be complete from Das Kapital's labor-vs-capital Marxist manifesto to Thomas Piketty's Capital "exposing capitalism's fatal flaw" topping the Amazon book charts. One wonders who finds the time to read the 696 page tome whose core thesis is well-known for socialists the world over: under capitalism the rich, or hoarders of capital, get steadily richer in relation to everyone else; inequality gets worse and worse and it's all unavoidable, between #Selfies, The Voice semi-finals, and Dance Moms finales.
One thing is certain: the financial asset tax we warned about back in 2011 is coming with a bang [12].
So, communism's heyday is coming again, right? Maybe. One thing is certain: liberals couldn't be more delighted about mandatory equality. But as we discussed yesterday, there is one thing that no one seems to want to discuss about Piketty's findings... gold... [13]
Well, feature the chart that Professor Piketty publishes showing inequality in America. This appears in the book at figure 9.8; a similar version, shown alongside here, is offered on his Web site. It’s an illuminating chart. It shows the share of national income of the top decile of the population. It started the century at a bit above 40% and edged above 45% in the Roaring Twenties. It plunged during the Great Depression and edged down in World War II, and then steadied out, until we get to the 1970s. Something happened then that caused income inequality to start soaring. The top decile's share of income went from something like 33% in 1971 to above 47% by 2010.
[14]
Hmmm. What could account for that? Could it be the last broadcast of the “Lawrence Welk Show?” Or the blast off of the Apollo 14 mission to the Moon? Or could it have something to do with the mysterious D.B. Cooper, who bailed out of the plane he hijacked, never to be seen again? A timeline of 1971 offers so many possibilities. But, say, what about the possibility that it was in the middle of 1971, in August, that America closed the gold window at which it was supposed to redeem in specie dollars presented by foreign central banks. That was the default that ended the era of the Bretton Woods monetary system.
That’s the default that opened the age of fiat money. Or the era that President Nixon supposedly summed up in with Milton Friedman’s immortal words, “We’re all Keynesians now.” This is an age that has seen a sharp change in unemployment patterns. Before this date, unemployment was, by today’s standards, low. This was a pattern that held in Europe (these columns wrote about it in “George Soros’ Two Cents”) and in America (“Yellen’s Missing Jobs”). From 1947 to 1971, unemployment in America ran at the average rate of 4.7%; since 1971 the average unemployment rate has averaged 6.4%. Could this have been a factor in the soaring income inequality that also emerged in the age of fiat money?
This is the question the liberals don’t want to discuss, even acknowledge.
h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer