If you’re confused about income and wealth inequality, you’re in luck. The French economist Thomas Piketty has a book out called “Capital in the Twenty-first Century,” all about rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere. In case you’re not ready to actually read the book, John Cassidy has a fascinating piece in the New Yorker reviewing it. And in case you’re not actually ready to read the long review, Cassidy has a piece using Piketty’s charts to explain how, over time, the wealth of the top 1 percent and the top 10 percent have fluctuated. As Cassidy explains, we once had to understand things like the Gini coefficient and the Theil entropy index. Now we have charts.
Major Garrett reports from The Hague that Barack Obama is trying to put Vladimir Putin back in the place — again. But, as you might have noticed, it doesn’t seem to be working. Via the National Journal.
Sure it’s a tough time for unions, with membership dipping to historic lows. But there is good news. According to a National Labor Relations Board ruling, Northwestern University football players can now unionize. The ruling will be appealed, of course, but for now: Football players of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but the chains. Via the Associated Press.
Charles Pierce writes at his estimable Esquire politics blog that, whatever happens next in the college football case, this is the beginning of the end.
Megan McArdle writes for Bloomberg View that the big question in Obamacare is how many previously uninsured now have insurance. And the answer, she says, is that no one knows – and that no one will know for a while because it’s very hard to figure out.
As Molly Ball points out in the Atlantic, suddenly it’s Republicans who are driving the momentum on gay marriage. No, seriously.
Republicans cry foul in the House because some states are using perfectly legal loophole to avoid the food stamp cuts. The loophole, sadly, doesn’t apply in Colorado. Via the Washington Post.
