There is no question that inequality has been rising in the United States and that it raises numerous issues concerning what is a fair distribution of incomeandwealth, what taxes we ought to raise, and how to prevent those who acquire great economic power from also gaining excessive political power (through campaign contributions).
They have entirely ignored almost all of the things we do to change the distribution of incomeandwealth: they have measured them both before what we do to change them rather than what we want to know, after we have and thus what more do we need to do.
Lesson Two: Finding a clear answer to a crisis is more difficult when there are conflicts over distribution of wealthand income as now between northern and southern Europeans.
In the 1890s, when he was a doctoral student, Swiss economist Pareto found that the distribution of wealthandincome in France deviated from the bell curve in a unique way.
At least with deficit spending we all gain, but a few have achieved tremendous wealthand power as a result of financialization and the change in incomedistribution.