Martin Feldstein: Piketty's Number Don't Add Up

Ignoring dramatic changes in tax rules since 1980 creates the false impression that income inequality is rising:

Thomas Piketty has recently attracted widespread attention for his claim that capitalism will now lead inexorably to an increasing inequality of income and wealth unless there are radical changes in taxation. Although his book, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," has been praised by those who advocate income redistribution, his thesis rests on a false theory of ..how wealth evolves in a market economy, a flawed interpretation of U.S. income-tax data, and a misunderstanding of the current nature of household wealth.

Update: Piketty's Book -- Just Another Excuse For Legal Plunder And Expanding The State:

...Those responses to Piketty, accurate though they are, do little to blunt his message that the rich are already too rich and will keep getting richer unless government steps in to impose substantially higher taxes on them. Arguing against Piketty on the grounds that inequality isn’t as great as he says is futile. It’s like trying to file down the tip on your dueling opponent’s sword – the darned thing will still be lethal.

Rather than going after Piketty’s numbers, we need to go after his philosophy...

Update: Data problems with Capital in the 21st Century

Update: Why Piketty's Wealth Data Are Worthless:

...Private retirement plans rose to $12.4 trillion in 2012 from $875 billion in 1984. None of it is reported on tax returns....

The Sine Qua Non of Anne-Marie Slaughter's Angst

Economic historian Amity Shlaes provides a sharp-witted analysis ('Women Who Want It All Should Conceive a Business') of the economic choices  Anne-Marie Slaughter could have availed herself as a response to the angstful 'Why Women Still Can't Have It All'.  Slaughter delves in to the work-life balance challenges of a high-ranking State Department official with children.

Readers of Mrs. Slaughter's piece could be forgiven for the snarky thought of 'the lady doth protest to much'.  There is a chicken-to-the-egg for all the angst.  Mrs. Slaughter and her husband partnered to have children.

Once the egg had been seeded, there's the alea iacta est of a sine qua non (the 'die has been cast' on a 'without this nothing' condition).  It is this wife-husband partnership and its original founding principles that should provide the guidance to all joint decisions that balance aspirations and needs of children and parents.

Mrs. Slaughter's social policy recommendations to ameliorate the angst  (“We need to change our social policies more fundamentally with good day care, school that ends the same time work ends and really providing for more integrated work and school life.") is an attempt to shift the costs/responsibilities wife and husband have for raising children.  It dilutes the partnership rather than strengthening it.   Moreover, it increases government's footprint into areas of responsibility we are well equipped to deal with when a self-sufficient philosophy is applied.

If Slaughter is asking the greater society to bear some of the costs for her (and her husband's) child rearing decisions, society has a right to ask what it will get in return for these added costs; and to make a reasoned decision on what it will get in return.  It should only do so with the full knowledge that increasing government always has unintended consequences; which should inform a bias for small/minimal government.

Related: What’s in it for U.S.?: The Limited Government Case against Gay Marriage

What’s in it for U.S.?: The Limited Government Case against Gay Marriage

(Reposted in light of  Obama's 'evolution'.)

What’s in it for U.S.?: The Limited Government Case against Gay Marriage

While many cite cultural and religious reasons to oppose gay marriage, one doesn't need to resort to pathos and ethos-based arguments when formulating our public policy on marriage in general. A simple limited government philosophy offers the appropriate perspective.

The human condition is analog not digital. As in the non-human animal world, human sexuality is found along a spectrum of relationships. From a biological perspective and without scientific intervention, procreation in humans requires an individual male and an individual female.

Before considering the question of gay marriage, a more fundamental question should be considered: Why marriage at all?

In the United States, marriage is a tri-party legal agreement. The first two parties, husband and wife, are obvious. The third party is the state/community that acknowledges a marriage. Male and female couples petition the state –and more generally, their community– to recognize their marriage. If it was just a simple relationship amongst consenting adults, the community would have no need –and more importantly no business– acknowledging the relationship.

However, marriage is a relationship that imposes responsibilities on the community and that’s why the state is involved in its recognition and definition (see Update 2/5/2013 below); as in detailing that only two (not more) individuals of the opposite sex will be recognized in a marriage. Married couples get legal tax and inheritance status. Male-female couples asking the state to recognize their marriage are also asking the state to address the care of their biological children if the couples are incapable of doing so.

What does the community get in return for consideration of this ‘special’ status? It is rejuvenated –by the only relationship that can procreate: a male-female relationship– and benefits from responsibly raised children in a marriage. Because of the corrosive effects to the community of infidelity, the community acknowledges only monogamous marriages. This shared responsibility amongst all the parties (husband, wife, community) is the limited government rationale for marriage as a legal construct.

Gay couples asking the community to recognize their relationships have a responsibility to address the question: ‘In return for the community’s recognition, what will you do for the state that justifies more government?’. They may counter that some gay couples have children and that their care benefits the community. But these children are not, and can not be, the natural offspring of a gay marriage. They are the shared responsibility of the biological parents and the state. The existing legal constructs are sufficient to address the children’s and community’s interests.

The state/community will be a party to any marriage and therefore has every right to say which marriages it will recognize. The gay couples seeking recognition must make their case for community involvement in their relationship when the sine qua non condition of biological procreation does not exist and there are sufficient laws to deal with any children in a gay relationship. Until the argument for an expansion of government is made, the basic principle of limited government, the minimal amount of laws our society needs to function, should prevail.

• Update 12/11/2012: Scientists May Have Finally Unlocked Puzzle of Why People Are Gay) 
• Update: 12/30/2012: State of Kansas wants sperm donor found on Craigslist to pay for daughter born to lesbian couple
• Update 2/5/2013: The Washington State Court of Appeals affirmed the argument of marriage being between a male and female in Singer v. Hara: see HeadNote [4] along with its detail.
  

  [4] Marriage -- Nature of Marriage -- Public Policy -- Same-sex Marriages. The legislative purpose behind RCW 26.04, which authorizes marriage only between two persons of different sex, is to give effect to the public policy of marriage being an appropriate and desirable forum for procreation and rearing of children. The prohibition of same-sex marriages results from the impossibility of procreation.

• Update 2/9/2013: Florida judge approves birth certificate listing three parents)
• Update 6/29/2014: The Brave New World of Three-Parent I.V.F.
• Update 11/7/2014: 6th Circuit Echoes Porkopolis' Arguments on Rationale for State of Ohio Defining Marriage