I Do Think It Is Time for Marty Feldstein to Stop Writing Things for the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Page

Martin Feldstein: Piketty’s Numbers Don’t Add Up: Ignoring dramatic changes in tax rules since 1980 creates the false impression that income inequality is rising

Those are the headlines and subheads that the Wall Street Journal’s editors gave his op-ed on Thomas Piketty…

I cannot imagine that any other than a very few highly detached from reality would be happy to be associated with the claim that income inequality is not rising across the North Atlantic: that is not a hill to die on today.

And I cannot imagine that any other than a very few highly detached from reality would be happy to be associated with the claim that Piketty’s estimates of increasing wealth-to-income and wealth concentration “don’t add up” given their reflection in secularly-high equity valuation ratios, bond valuation ratios, and capital income shares.

Now Marty’s op-ed itself is quite good. But the impact it will have on the debate is dominated by the title and subhead the editors give it.

And there does come a point where one’s editors are so heavily engaged in the ideological-warfare game that the only way to win is not to play. And I think we have reached that point here…