I have enjoyed hearing Tyler Cowen on other podcasts. But his dismissal of Piketty's thesis based on inflated land values in certain regions makes no sense to me. If, as Piketty argues, the return to capital relentlessly increases, then one would expect that capital to flow to all kinds of assets, including land prices in metro cities. Piketty may be wrong, but Cowen's argument here didn't cut it for me. In fact, it took him down a notch in my estimation.
Land values? Isn't a much larger factor the increase in stock prices, in no small way due to FED support. I just saw that 25% of SandP value comes from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
I kind of had a similar feeling about this, like isn't owning land a form of capital? I'd like someone to ask Tyler about this and clarify what exactly he thinks, as I suspect he'd have a pretty good answer to the critique.
Big fan of Tyler Cowen, good to see him on here. I enjoyed the bits where he pushed Yascha to explain how he defined the concept of populism, which I'd never heard him talk about before.
Great conversation! Seeing you both in action picking apart and examining definitions and their application to the world had a great Socratic vibe. Very enjoyable to listen too.
One additional thought on the closing conversation on GDP. With greater GDP we are also more likely to have a future Elon Musk who is able to blow up killer asteroids, which might come in handy.
Tyler Cowen is often interesting, challenges new orthodoxies. Yes, Piketty's work(s) have many flaws and have been roundly refuted. Income inequality is a serious problem but it does not stem from excessive returns to capital.
I recently subscribed to Persuasion because of a couple of excellent articles in the past few months. However, I hope you don't interview people like Tyler Cowen anymore. I would have to cancel my subscription.
I have enjoyed hearing Tyler Cowen on other podcasts. But his dismissal of Piketty's thesis based on inflated land values in certain regions makes no sense to me. If, as Piketty argues, the return to capital relentlessly increases, then one would expect that capital to flow to all kinds of assets, including land prices in metro cities. Piketty may be wrong, but Cowen's argument here didn't cut it for me. In fact, it took him down a notch in my estimation.
Land values? Isn't a much larger factor the increase in stock prices, in no small way due to FED support. I just saw that 25% of SandP value comes from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.
I kind of had a similar feeling about this, like isn't owning land a form of capital? I'd like someone to ask Tyler about this and clarify what exactly he thinks, as I suspect he'd have a pretty good answer to the critique.
Big fan of Tyler Cowen, good to see him on here. I enjoyed the bits where he pushed Yascha to explain how he defined the concept of populism, which I'd never heard him talk about before.
Great conversation! Seeing you both in action picking apart and examining definitions and their application to the world had a great Socratic vibe. Very enjoyable to listen too.
One additional thought on the closing conversation on GDP. With greater GDP we are also more likely to have a future Elon Musk who is able to blow up killer asteroids, which might come in handy.
Tyler Cowen is often interesting, challenges new orthodoxies. Yes, Piketty's work(s) have many flaws and have been roundly refuted. Income inequality is a serious problem but it does not stem from excessive returns to capital.
I recently subscribed to Persuasion because of a couple of excellent articles in the past few months. However, I hope you don't interview people like Tyler Cowen anymore. I would have to cancel my subscription.