Monday, September 16, 2013

16/9/2013: Call me, once granny kicks the proverbial...


Structural slowdown? What structural slowdown... not in France and in particular not in the French traditional way of making the living... by inheriting it...


The chart above comes from one of the leading researchers on income and wealth distributions, Thomas Piketty. The key to reading this chart is that as a fraction of total disposable income, inheritance flows are now back at the levels last seen in and around WW1 period. The good old days of the 19th century when landed gentry and hereditary wealth class were all the rage is back in the Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite dreamland of France. Or put in more brutish, American terms - work? why bother, when inheriting things is so much more fun than earning them by merit.

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