Blog
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1. Introduction: The Billionaire Action Lab Network at MIT & the problem of poverty
As many people are aware, MIT has the excellent Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), headed by economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Bannerjee, among others (http://www.povertyactionlab.org/). As they say on their About page, they have become “a global…
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2. The Problem of (and for) the super-rich: r > g
What is “the problem of the super-rich”? Put simply, it is the inequality r > g. Thomas Piketty’s blockbuster book “Capital in the 21st Century” identifies this relationship, r > g, as the fundamental driving…
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3. H. O. P. E. Higher Order Profit Evaluation
H.O.P.E. Higher Order Profit Evaluation. The acronym is a joke, but the idea is serious. Our political economic system is sadly off track. We have a sense of the problems facing the world today — climate…
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4. Vending Machine: How much is that inequality?
We’ve heard about “teachable moments.” What about “teachable objects”? Enter the BAL’N Vending Machine. While reading Piketty (2013), I have been struck by how little I understood about the level of income inequality in the world…