Normally I don't comment on posts that consist mainly of a link, but I'll make a suggestion here. Maybe we need a thread on neo-classical economics. There are several board members who teach economics and everybody who does has a canned schtick on it.
The "Observer" page discusses Piketty. This should get a lot of attention. Unfortunately Harvard Press did its usually and is trying to print an extra 80,000 copies of "Capital". Double that and they might get some breathing room before running out again; their backorders will total more than 80,000 before the new print run arrives. Until then, folks can read Krugman's review in the New York Review of Books.
Piketty is not working in a vacuum and this is not a new subject for him. There is a pretty rich body of research and publication that leads up to this book. Of course the political punditsphere doesn't know that this study has been going on for twenty years and thus it is the "new idea" of the month. It has a lot more staying power than that.
This is likely to be the most important work in fundamental economic theory in a half century. It is the first work to rigorously attempt to integrate income distribution and growth theory in a coherent way.
You heard it from me first: when we can read Picketty and especially where his unpublished current research is headed, there will be a connection between Larry Summer's resurrection of Alvin Hansen's growth theory and secular stagnation ( the Last Big Idea in macro, only six months old) and income distribution. Maybe increasing maldistribution of income and wealth from the 99.98% to the 0.02% of patrimonial capitalists has a depressing effect on aggregate demand and leads (with other factors) to secular stagnation. Who wudda thunk! We recreate the world of 1929 and maybe the economy behaves like its 1929.
Now if this is the road we want to go down on this forum, my question is do we consider this the start or do we have a better labelled thread for it?
And is this what Dot Com had in mind, or am I hijacking your thread?