RT by @lugaricano: Okay, I had the time to read this over. In the past, I did not mince words much. I do not see the reason to do any mincing now.

There are six replies that must be made to this piece.

First: Zucman (I am assuming he also speaks for the other two musketeers) is goalpost-shifting. The argument that used to be made was that inequality followed a strong U-curve with a precipitated fall between 1941 and 1947. The trough lasted to 1980 and continued since and exceeding the level of the 1920s. That narrative and timing makes it easy to justify tax policy correctives. However, they now say "inequality is higher than in the 1960s" which is not the same statement. Indeed, saying it increased allows for a rapid level-change from 1980 to 2000 with no change since (I am speaking pre-tax and pre-transfers). That is not "denying" inequality (a cheap shot against Splinter and Auten). This obfuscates from the obliteration of two previous goalposts they used. The first is that the levelling of the U-curve is actually more gradual and most of it happens during the 1930s with the depression -- 80% to 85% of the decline in the top 1%'s share happens from 1929 to 1941. That makes it harder to focus on tax policy as the driving force (the wiping of capital gains during the depression is). Second, it eliminates the claim that inequality is forever rising. Shifting goalposts is what this is! But these two points that they had been making been making for a decade no longer apply regardless of the criticism here.

Second: The issue at hand is how to harmonize the definition of income according to different sources so that they become consistent. This can be broken down into two periods (pre-1960 and post-1960). PSZ claim that since fiscal income accounts for 60-70% of national income, any levelling would have to be because the rest has become more equally distributed. That assum…

🐦🔗: https://nitter.cz/VincentGeloso/status/1736483851357028857#m

[2023-12-17 20:29 UTC]