Why Save the Bankers?: And Other Essays on Our Economic and Political Crisis

by Thomas Piketty, Seth Ackerman (Translator)

Incisive commentary on the financial meltdown and its aftermath, from the author of the bestselling global phenomenon  Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Thomas Piketty's work has proved that unfettered markets lead to increasing inequality. Without meaningful regulation, capitalist economies will concentrate wealth in an ever smaller number of hands. Armed with this knowledge, democratic societies face a defining fending off a new aristocracy.

For years, Piketty has wrestled with this problem in his monthly newspaper column, which pierces the surface of current events to reveal the economic forces underneath. Why Save the Bankers? brings together selected columns, now translated and annotated, from the period book-ended by the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers and the Paris attacks of November 2015. In between, writing from the vantage point of his native France, Piketty brilliantly decodes the European sovereign debt crisis, an urgent struggle against the tyranny of markets that bears lessons for the world at large. And along the way, he weighs in on oligarchy in the United States, wonders whether debts actually need to be paid back, and discovers surprising lessons about inequality by examining the career of Steve Jobs.

Coursing with insight and flashes of wit, these brief essays offer a view of recent history through the eyes of one of the most influential economic thinkers of our time.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Essays, Business, Finance, France

212 pages, Hardcover

First published April 5, 2016

About the author

Thomas Piketty (French: [tɔma pikɛti]; born May 7, 1971) is a French economist who works on wealth and income inequality. He is the director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and professor at the Paris School of Economics. He is the author of the best selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), which emphasizes the themes of his work on wealth concentrations and distribution over the past 250 years. The book argues that the rate of capital return in developed countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that this will cause wealth inequality to increase in the future. To address this problem, he proposes redistribution through a global tax on wealth.

Piketty was born on May 7, 1971, in the Parisian suburb of Clichy. He gained a C-stream (scientific) Baccalauréat, and after taking scientific preparatory classes, he entered the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) at the age of 18, where he studied mathematics and economics. At the age of 22, Piketty was awarded his Ph.D. for a thesis on wealth redistribution, which he wrote at the EHESS and the London School of Economics under Roger Guesnerie.

After earning his PhD, Piketty taught from 1993 to 1995 as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1995, he joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a researcher, and in 2000 he became director of studies at EHESS.

Piketty won the 2002 prize for the best young economist in France, and according to a list dated November 11, 2003, he is a member of the scientific orientation board of the association "À gauche, en Europe", founded by Michel Rocard and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

In 2006 Piketty became the first head of the Paris School of Economics, which he helped set up. He left after a few months to serve as an economic advisor to Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal during the French presidential campaign. Piketty resumed teaching at the Paris School of Economics in 2007.

He is a columnist for the French newspaper Libération, and occasionally writes op-eds for Le Monde.

In April 2012, Piketty co-authored along with 42 colleagues an open letter in support of then-PS candidate for the French presidency François Hollande. Hollande won the contest against the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in May of that year.

In 2013, Piketty won the biennial Yrjö Jahnsson Award, for the economist under age 45 who has "made a contribution in theoretical and applied research that is significant to the study of economics in Europe."

Piketty specializes in economic inequality, taking a historic and statistical approach. His work looks at the rate of capital accumulation in relation to economic growth over a two hundred year spread from the nineteenth century to the present. His novel use of tax records enabled him to gather data on the very top economic elite, who had previously been understudied, and to ascertain their rate of accumulation of wealth and how this compared to the rest of society and economy. His most recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, relies on economic data going back 250 years to show that an ever-rising concentration of wealth is not self-correcting. To address this problem, he proposes redistribution through a global tax on wealth.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any rational person sees the world's injustice. Few come up with commonsensical, tried-and-true solutions as does Thomas Piketty, week by week, in his newspaper column for Libération, a Socialist-aligned daily.

You'll remember Piketty's name from his monster bestselling tome, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which The Belknap Press brought out in 2014. It's sat unread on many a poseur's coffee table. (I've owned it since 2015, and have reached p310: Wage Scales and the Minimum Wage, which begins: "There is no doubt that the minimum wage plays an essential role on the formation and evolution of wage inequalities, as the French and US experiences show." Out of 577 pages of text plus a hundred or so more of back-matter, I can't claim to be whipping through this one...not least because OWWW my hands!)

And still, I say with his, among other reasonable voices (I'm looking at you, Yanis Varoufakis), pointing and waving their arms to drag the world's attention to these solutions, what's the problem with fixing the seriously, badly broken economic stuff the 99.9% endure?! Here's the problem. Piketty wants to tame greed and mitigate inequality. That does not suit the Economic Royalists in control of the modern world.

See the rest on my blog, Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud, on 8 October.

[Public Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

French economist Thomas Piketty set the world ablaze a few years back with this massive tome Capital in the 21st Century. I haven't tackled that particular work just yet, but certainly intend to.

Here we have a collection of Piketty's monthly newspaper columns published after the global financial crisis in 2008. The title is probably the best thing about this book. I found the change in perspective from my own American-dominated one to Piketty's Eurocentric view very refreshing. Piketty has a lively prose and a knack for explaining inequality in layman's terms. By far my favorite parts were the brief glimpses of analysis on American history and economics. Here are some good examples:

"In concrete terms, the United States didn't develop a welfare state because it didn't want to subsidize a black underclass..."

Discussing the US Supreme Court after the Citizens United and McCutcheon v. Federal Election decisions, "The justices once tried to block the income tax in the nineteenth century and the minimum wage in the 1930s. They seem well on their way to reprising the same reactionary role today..."

Sometimes it takes an outsider's perspective to grasp some harsh truths about your own country.

Having said that, this book is far from essential. Much of it is intensely focused on the picayune scandals of post-crisis France and the European Union. There are some gems buried inside though.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why Save the Bankers?: And Other Essays on Our Economic and Political Crisis, written by Thomas Piketty, is a collection of essays written during the financial crisis of 2008. Piketty is well known for his Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and this book presents a collectio0n of his essays and ideas on subjects such as debt-income ratios and central banking, topics well covered in his magnum opus. Topics in the book range from EU central banking policy to French political scandals perpetuated by the L'Oreal clanswomen and their clandestine financial maneuverings.

This was an interesting and quick read, but it offers nothing new if you have already read Capital. I would even recommend skipping this one, and heading straight for Capital, which is much more interesting and well formulated. All in all a fine but seemingly redundant book which has very little new information or ideas to offer.

[Athan Tolis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rock star economist Thomas Piketty has earned the right to a regular column in the left-wing standard-bearer, Liberation, of which this is an anthology.

The main thrust of the articles is that if the European Union is to ever have the necessary legitimacy to solve its economic problems, it urgently needs to make the change from bureaucratic federation to democratic federation. He makes the point rather convincingly.

On the other hand, I found he harped rather annoyingly on issues of taste, rather than substance. He has some type of vendetta with a cosmetics heiress, for example. One article about Lilianne Bettancourt would have been more than enough for my taste. And he has a problem with a sovereign state like Ireland setting its own corporate tax rate. I can see that if it were to join a democratic federation of European states it would obviously have to desist, but until then the general idea behind running your own country is you get to decide that type of thing. I did not have much time for the “tax dumping” term he uses either.

Also, he gives short shrift to the necessary microeconomic reforms that must complement the macro solutions he advocates. It’s rather poignant that the first article here dates from 2008. Eight years later, some structural changes of the type he denigrates would definitely have borne some permanent and enduring results. His advocacy of sexy macro over boring micro strikes me as dogmatic.

Inevitably, some of the themes covered here echo his more famous book, “Capital in the 21st Century,” so you get a good helping of r>g and his recommendation to tax wealth. I don’t have terribly much time for these ideas, but they are articulated well. If you never read “Capital,” find out all about them here and save the time it would have taken to read his 500-page magnum opus.

I’m rather happy I dedicated the time to read “Chronicles,” it most definitely made me think and I had fun reading it. What I can’t pardon the author, however, is his praise for my country’s current Syriza government. Intellectuals like Thomas Piketty urged us to fight their own proxy war against “austerity” that Schaeuble could only be seen to win.

I’m not at all excited to have been martyred for his cause.

Overall, however, I knew what I was getting into when I was picking up “Chronicles,” so there’s little point complaining about the politics of the book.

Piketty’s first attempt to emulate Paul Krugman is written clearly, the arguments are constructed well and the author’s main message regarding the need for a federal European state is not provided as an axiomatic truth; rather, it’s presented as the prerequisite to make the Euro work. In the context of Brexit one has to agree that he’s got that spot on: democratic legitimacy needs to come first and only then can we look at the economics.

It’s sad that very soon this might be a moot point.

[Renée · Rating 5 out of 5]

The key to reading on the New York subways (or any mode of public transit I suppose but especially in the people-watching, crowded, gawker-friendly MTA-territory) is to carry a book more interesting than your phone or the person next to you. This is that book.

The key to a good new year is a radicalizing piece of scathing social science from one of the Zeitgeist‘s chosen Wunderkinder Propheten. This is that book.

(The other is Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All.)

Do I want to read Piketty’s Capital? Obviously. Do I want to read Ulysses? Duh. The key to loving Joyce but never reading Ulysses is the Dubliners. The Dubliners:Joyce:: This Book: Piketty.

[Jaguar Tiririca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and important chronicles from 2008-2015 by Thomas Piketty.
His writing is so clear and understandable, even though, for many, he talks about rather difficult topics.

"Over the last few decades, the working class has endured double hardship, first economic and secondly political... Those groups that are best equipped with financial and cultural capital have been able to benefit fully from globalization... One might have imagined that public institutions and social welfare systems - policymaking overall - would adapt to the new situation by asking more from its main beneficiaries in order to devote more to the most affected groups. But the opposite has occurred."

It’s hard to recap the book without going through all the topics, but I will mention a few here.

Most of the growth that’s been in Europe and USA since the 1980s have gone to the richest 10% --> 1%. As an example, in France (from 1998-2005), the purchasing power of the bottom 90% grew by 4%, while the richest 1% had a growth of 20% (40% for the riches 0,01%).

EU needs to collaborate better. One of the fields where they are failing is with the lack of common tax regulations throughout the EU, making countries as Irland and Luxemburg tax havens for big companies. And getting all the EU countries into a downward spiral on taxation. It’s ever urgent that we get at least a Euro-American register of financial securities, to combat tax havens both within and outside Europe and America. Starting with transparency for bank information and transactions and imposing a corporate tax for the area.

Thomas Piketty's main point in the book, is maybe that EU, and the 18 countries in the Eurozone needs to get a common debt, controlled by the European Central Bank (ECB), with common interest rate among the different nations. Europe has more assets and loans in the rest of the world, than what the rest of the world has inside Europe. Even though this is the case, many countries in Europe are still struggling (2016) from the financial crisis, because of high interest rates on their debt from the Financial Crisis (2008). While USA, Japan and many more have managed to get their economy going again. After WW2 France and Germany had debts of 200% of their GDP but manage to get rid of most of it within a few years, due to high inflation (which you can’t control if you don’t control your currency) and deleting of some of the debt. But now (2016) they’re not giving any help to struggling countries in southern Europe (Italy, Spain, and Greece, all with interest rates around 6%, while France and Germany have around 1%). So, France and Germany, should propose to create a Eurozone, with common debt, common taxation and the ECB controlling it. Instead of holding all of EU back, because many countries have to pay back their debts with interest rates, far higher than the economic growth.

The book in itself gets a bit repetitive, when you read all the chronicles in a week, but the real content is fairly spread over almost 8 years. This book is not the version that on Goodreads, from what I understood there’s one European based and one USA based. Anyway, this one only contains 174 pages. Thank you for reading all the way to the end.

[Agustin Montenegro · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very interesting to read a challenging view on global issues.

The book begins talking about the 2008 economic crisis and who's fault is it and how we should make those people accountable.

Some things that I disagreed with is the idea of calling Europe, United States of Europe where a single currency with single debt and single interest rates would fix all the problems that the continent faces specially investing competition. I think he overlooked the fact that each country is its own because of the sense of nationalism they have. Merging everything into one would completely dissolve all the cultural differences present.

I am not even going to talk about the social system in Europe and the reasons I disagree with increasing taxes onto the wealthy so there can be better redistribution of assets. But I do agree with having to deal with the issue that most assets in Europe are patrimony and inheritance dominates economic life of the continent.

Good and easy read, would definitely recommend. Get ready to read a little about much

[Wendy Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

If your only encounter with Piketty's work is through the short but dry The Economics of Inequality, or the much longer Capital in the Twenty-First Century, you'll find this book quite refreshing. This collection consists of various newspaper columns published in France between 2008 and 2015 and, as you would expect from that format, they're all concise and highly readable. Definitely lots of overlap between the pieces but I still found the book as a whole to be engrossing and valuable.

Some notes on how this fits in within the greater economic field, from someone who may or may not be qualified to comment on this (I've read a lot of books in the field lately, but there are of course many people who have read more, so take it as you will):

Piketty is quite critical of heterodoxy, but he's able to write in such a way that his views still seem palatable enough to be taken seriously by the establishment. For some, he isn't critical enough, especially in the language he uses--you won't find the word "neoliberalism" in this book, for instance--but his underlying aims are still broadly in the same direction as those of the more radical left, just couched in more conventional terms. If you're used to reading more radical authors, Piketty's work might be a bit jarring due to their relative orthodoxy, but it's still worth reading, if only to get a sense of how he achieves this balance.

Weirdly, he also kind of reminds me of Barthes in style and tone, but maybe that's just because Barthes was also a French columnist. Take that as you will.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Picketty, of course, made a great splash with his serious work on economic inequality, The Economics of Inequality. This work by the French economist is actually a series of bagatelles, columns published in French media. The obvious analogy is Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate in economics, who writes a column for the New York Times. Also, bagatelles as his product.

Still, such works can be useful. In both cases, we have serious economists trying to explain issues to a wider audience than other experts in economics. Whether I agree or disagree with specific columns by Picketty and Krugman, I appreciate their efforts. Both are literate with an engaging style (more difficult for Picketty, since English is not the language I n which he normally publishes).

Each reader will have to choose for him or herself how satisfying the set of essays is. Personally, I find his essays engaging. He has a perspective (and is not shy at sharing it), but within those contours he provides sprightly analyses of current events and issues.

Worth a read. . . .

[Bill Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book. It challenged a lot of preconceived notions I had about free markets and it very systematically and logically identifies some of the flaws in classical economic doctrine in a way that isn't so much a critique as it is a deeper investigation of the fundamentals of a market economy. It's a good fair read for anyone interested in the topic of how and why markets work the way they do and how we can manipulate them. I only give it 4 stars though because you can tell there are points where he kind of uses the data to work backwards from his prejudices instead of examining the data to form an opinion.

[Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s unbelievable Piketty is heralded as today’s Marx. This collection of articles is worthy reading for its demonstration of how pathetic and desperate European liberalism has become. As the book progresses, Piketty seems to pull more and more of his hair out at the declining appetite for European federalism. In most articles, Piketty posits a good and bad response to a particular issue, and without fail the next article begins with recapping how the bad option was taken and what to do next (repeat ad infinitum).

Piketty’s solution? “Let’s dream a little, and vote.” (p.138)

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This lively collection of French liberal economist Thomas Piketty’s columns from 2011-2015 is definitely dated; much has happened to the world since 2015 (Covid, Ukraine, mass immigration and the rise of neo fascists). But it is quite fascinating to see the issues at that time through Piketty’s world view, which is that the 28 countries of Europe must create a common tax system, bank (and debt) to win progress and compete in the global system. They must also work to eliminate tax havens and reduce generational wealth, which Piketty argues, steals from the common good and hurts innovation. Have things changed in the 10 years since? Not as much as one might hope. While there is an evolution, Piketty presciently warns of a time bomb element to some of these issues that could lead to the right wing political chaos we are beginning to experience today.

[Sofia Cimballa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not dazzled. But why did I expect to be dazzled? I like essay collections where the essays (in this case, newspaper columns) are all very short — but in this case the brevity left me feeling like I never actually learned anything substantial. I did enjoy the last 2 essay/columns! I think the only reason I finished this book is because I read it on a 9 hour car trip and it was the closest book in reach.

[Isaac]

While I agree with a lot of his points on taxation and monetary policy, I reach different conclusions

On taxation, I don’t believe there is a country left in the west that can tax the rich at the right level. Most of us have succumbed to some level of propaganda on this point.

On monetary policy, my conclusion is “don’t live in Europe for any reason”

[donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

easy to digest if not someone too familiar with economic/political terminology. brilliant writer

[Garrett Mastella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read, Piketty’s work is great, good insight into the economic workings of the EU

[Faris Alsaleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

An introduction to the mind of the french economist Thomas Piketty before I start his critically acclaimed "Capital in the Twenty-First Century". A collection of essays that will give you thought provoking insights on the recent economic crises.

[Sina Mousavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume is a compilation of essays written by prominent French economist, Thomas Piketty, in his Libération column between 2008 and 2015. I found the majority of essays insightful and thought-provoking, helped by the succinct and precise writing style. A pleasant reading experience.

Although Piketty covers a diverse range of topics, it does not make for a disjointed whole. The coherence of the book is preserved through two concurring, and inter-related, themes.

(I) The European response to the 2008 Financial Crisis. Predictably, the author is highly critical of the austerian approach taken by European elites and institutions in the aftermath of the crisis. A fervent Europhile disturbed by the diminishing status and agency of Europe vis-à-vis the US and China, Piketty points out the limitations of monetary policy as a recession-fighting instrument, and persuasively argues for a pan-European federal alternative to fiscal austerity. In a column written for Le Monde in 2019, hinting to the neoliberal origins of the EU, well-documented in the work of Quinn Slobodian, he perfectly summarises his approach to the European question:

There is no reason why present-day Europe should remain imbued with a Hayek-type vision. Today the European banner serves the interests of those whose aim is to impose their class politics. But it is up to us to remind people that Europe could be organised in a different manner as was already the opinion of Wooton, Beveridge or even Robbins almost 80 years ago.

Frustrated by the endless public debt crises in the Eurozone, and zero-sum “tax dumping” measures taken by certain countries (e.g. Ireland and Luxembourg) to attract foreign capital, Piketty maintains that the European status quo is simply untenable, a view only enhanced by the ongoing Brexit saga. Among his bold proposals to reform the current institutional arrangement, is the mutualisation of all European public debt, to prevent financial markets from disruptive speculation on different Eurozone treasury bonds, resulting in impossible debt service payments for certain nations, such as Greece and Italy. This, in turn, necessitates the creation of a European Senate, combining finance committees from all Eurozone national parliaments, to discuss and conduct a unified European fiscal policy.

(II) The inherent tendency of capital accumulation to outpace economic growth (r > g). This, indeed, is the main thesis for the author’s magnum opus, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Exacerbated by increasingly regressive and unfair tax policies, extreme inequality has resulted in dwindling standards of living for Western European and American working-classes, and thus a global backlash against the elites responsible for such outcomes. The emboldening of the forces of reaction and xenophobia, giving rise to dangerous demagogues, such as Trump and Salvini, is by no means a surprise to any serious observer of our inegalitarian era of capitalism.

For Piketty, however, the future does not have to be all bleak and gloomy. He passionately presents his vision for a progressive European project, which invests in green infrastructure, education, and technology, instead of in-fighting endlessly over French debt to German Banks, and German debt to French banks, while shooting itself in the foot by adopting counter-productive austerity measures.

Progressive taxation, on both income and wealth, is an essential tool to implement this agenda, on which the survival of our civilizational achievements, as Homo Sapiens, depends. Piketty’s body of work, alongside his French colleagues, Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, is invaluable to cosmopolitan and forward-looking political movements fighting for justice all over the world. For this, I can not be thankful of them enough.

[Venky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along with Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Picketty is part of a Troika that has its guns firmly trained on policies that preach austerity, deficit-reigning and stimulus inhibition. Following the massive success of his seminal tome "Capital In The 21st Century", Picketty is back again with a new offering. Not exactly 'new' as "Chronicles" is a collection of articles which Picketty wrote mainly for French newspapers between the years 2010-2015.

Covering a myriad range of topics ranging from the insolvency of Greece to the migration crisis of 2015, Picketty writes with candour and clarity. Taking a swipe at the sheer incongruence of wealth which leads to the rich stashing away their wealth in obscure tax havens and the more modest breed of humanity forking out part of their hard earned wages in taxes, Picketty calls for a more equitable redistribution of wealth. This he argues can be achieved by taxing profits/capital instead of wages. A tax on the super rich, enhanced taxation of capital gains and stringent imposition of exchange of information requirements on the tax havens are some of the measures suggested by this French Economist.

Picketty is of the firm impression that the travails brought on by the recent financial crisis that still has the Eurozone reeling in its wake, are purely the workings of an untrammeled capitalistic bent of mind having as the centre of its objective - greed. A greed that resulted in the careless deregulation of finance and a senseless creation of esoteric financial instruments that wreaked wanton economic destruction on both sides of the Atlantic. Picketty also proposes some avenues for redemption in so far as the weakened Eurozone is concerned. Reiterating the fact that a single unified currency works at cross purposes when combined with seventeen different interest rates and twenty seven varying debt mechanisms, Picketty moots the creation of a centralized, federal European Union which would monitor not only the Euro but would also harmonise the debt policies and interest rate regimes. As far as Picketty is concerned, it is still not too late for the Euro.

This thin companion to "Capital..." makes for particularly introspective and sobering reading when it comes to discussing the wealth accumulating proclivities of the rich and famous. The bruising battle being waged in court by mother and daughter duo of Liliane and Francoise Bettencourt (scions of the L'0real Group) over a 1 billion Euro gift by the octogenarian Liliane to a photographer friend not only illustrates the shameful washing of dirty linen in public, but also the accumulation mindset of the high priests and priestesses of fame and fortune.

Picketty stresses that democracy and equality need not be either forced choices or efforts in exhaustion. Mere structural adjustments would not suffice to bridge the ever widening chasm between the haves and the have-nots. But as Picketty eloquently and convincingly argues with the right kind of mindset and a reformist bent of vein, this noble objective can transcend from being a mere pipe dream to a cherished reality.

"Chronicles" - An essential voice for our times!

[Kyle Minton · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a stupid name for this collection of essays by economist Thomas Piketty. One would think it is an entire book of intensely ideological essays dedicated to rumination of whether we should have bailed out a corrupt financial industry. Instead, the reader is greeted with a series of opinion pieces written for a leftist French Magazine from 2008 - 2015. Written with both brevity and the authority given to a man whose career revolves around the study of capital as it pertains to major world powers, each piece offers insight on questions of inequality, globalism, taxation, trade, and even topics like terrorism or reparations for slavery.

The best part about reading WSTB was the timing I had in picking it up. Reading Piketty make plea after plea for a government that steps in to bail out citizens who are inevitably left behind by global capitalism (that global capitalism leaves many people in the lower and middle classes behind is an indisputable fact at this point, thanks largely in part to Piketty's work in Capital in the Twenty First Century) AND watching those citizens rebel against global capitalism with phenomenons such as Trump or the Brexit, offers unique validation to everything he was saying in real time. It's almost like reading a countdown to dangerous nationalist protectionism. What's more interesting is that Piketty's tome Capital in the Twenty First Century was long thought to be an arm of the far left, but it seems that Piketty believes in bailing out the banks, free trade agreements, and rapid technological advancement with the caveat that there must be strong social governments that work to redistribute the subsequent gains from global economic growth. After realizing that our world governments, for the most part, have been doing the opposite of what Piketty suggests doing at the time, it is amazing to look around and see everything he warned would happen if they don't; booming economic inequality, nationalist protectionism, distrust of governments, xenophobia, anti-globalism, and terrorism (which is actually the weakest piece, but the point is compelling and worth looking into at length).

The worst part about this books is mostly likely the decisions made by the publisher. The title and the exception of depth. If you're looking to read snippets as to why we might be where we are as an international community while maybe restoring your faith in a capitalism that could work for everyone, then this is a great and gratifying read. But if you're looking for depth, data, and a longer, more detailed timeline you should do yourself a favor and actually read Capital in the Twenty First Century all the way through. Then, ideally, publishers won't feel the need to push a sparknotes version like Why Save the Bankers.

[Sangwon Hyun · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Piketty book! The shortest of them, for sure. This is a collection of opinion pieces Piketty in the 7-8 year period after the 2008 financial crisis.

First of all, I found the translation to be superb. I learned a lot about the political and economic circumstances globally and in Europe during a period I was very much living through during my college and grad school years, but didn't have a meaningful understanding of. Piketty's views on inequality, globalization, and progressive taxation, are all backed with credible (publicly available) evidence -- the analysis usually is easy to read and makes intuitive sense.

This book is particularly great because while describing a current issue (say, the Greek debt crisis in 2010) it effortlessly invokes the necessary background knowledge, like so:

---
"The problem with these household metaphors [of a slothful indulging Greek state] is that the level of a country -- and for individuals as well -- capitalism is not just about merit. Far from it. For two reasons that can be summarized simply: the arbitrary nature of the initial inheritance, and the arbitrary nature of certain prices, especially on capital."
---

---
"For decades, the IMF has done everything possible to undermine the very principle of progressive taxation. In every country where it's intervened, it has favored taxes on consumption (which are not progressive) [...] Everywhere, it has explained that applying higher rates to higher tax brackets was harmful for growth and should be abandoned. This claim made no sense from a historical point of view: growth has never been as strong as it was in the years 1950 to 1980, a period when tax progressivity was at a maximum, especially in the United States."
---

[James Klagge · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of selected columns Piketty wrote for a French journal from 2008 to 2015. He applies some of the lessons he drew in his big book to contemporary events in Europe.
The good points are that these are brief, to the point, and gave me a European perspective that is hard to get in the USA.
The bad point is that it is quite repetitious. I suppose he writes each column to be somewhat self-contained, so he can't assume you know what he thinks on a certain issue from a previous column. So I lost count of how many times he said that a common currency (the euro) for 18 countries without a mutualized common debt is unsustainable. It leads to widely varying interest rates in different countries. France and Germany pay 1-2% for its debt while Greece and Italy and Spain pay 5-6% for its debt. And this accounts for Greece's inability to overcome its crisis. And similarly he repeats that growth cannot overcome inequality so that we need strongly progressive taxation. And we need international agreements to avoid tax competition between countries.
In general, Piketty's good sense and clear understanding come through on issue after issue. And the survey over time since the crisis began was helpful. One surprise was that he never once mentioned Britain in the whole series of essays. He did mention the threats to the EU from countries wanting to withdraw, but it was always southern European countries he mentioned. This shows what a shock Brexit was. But I guess that forms a launching point for his next book of topical columns.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The structure of this book really grabbed my attention. It took me a few sessions to become accustomed to the short staccato style essays that jumped from topic to topic. Once I became familiar with Piketty's writing style and essay structure, it became easier to grasp the main thesis of each piece and how one layered over the previous. Regardless of your politics, anyone who is serious about studying our current political and economic climates, should treat these essays as a unique opportunity to hear what are essentially first-hand accounts of events as they've happened since the financial crises. Piketty has a rare ability to quickly summarize events, put them into historical context, and immediately call attention to where progress might be found in solving issues.

On a personal note, having grown in up in my 20's throughout the economic crises and studied it while it was happening in school, this book served as a highlight-reel of everything that was happening on a global scale and where I was as it was happening. I still remember debates in class rooms as the Arab Spring was just getting started and to compare that to where we are just 7 years later made this book that much more engaging.

[Wendy Liu]

It kind of feels like I'm cheating to mark this as read because it's really just a rebranding of Chronicles (see this Q&A for an explanation of the differences) but I added this to my to-read shelf before I realised this and this one does have a few essays that Chronicles doesn't have so, whatever.

It's a quick read. Probably not worth reading if you've already read Capital, but if you haven't, or if you just want to read more of Piketty's writing, I recommend you give this (or Chronicles) a try.

[João Martins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a new book, rather a compilation of essays written by Thomas Piketty over the last 7 years for the French newspaper Libération (and one for Le Monde).

While it becomes a bit repetitive - the articles were not edited for this publication and tend to revolve around the same ideas -, it also reminds us of the stubbornness and lack of ideas (and action) from the European leaders on the years that followed the 2007-08 world crisis and brought us to the point we find Europe today (you know, nationalism, Brexit, xenophobia, offshores, inequality, etc.).

[Zak Essa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picketty has a brilliant mind and writes persuasively. Although I enjoyed reading this, most essays are short which is quite frustrating, you also need to have a fair knowledge of the European economic system and current events to fully appreciate most of the essays. It often felt like you would just get into a subject when suddenly a new (mostly) unrelated topic was introduced.

[Lloyd Fassett]

3/30/16 suggested by Goodreads because I've read the author.

From the book summary:

"he weighs in on oligarchy in the United States, wonders whether debts actually need to be paid back, and discovers surprising lessons about inequality by examining the career of Steve Jobs."

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

There's no reason to read this if you've already read Capital but I'm glad smart people throughout the world continue to think and write about the worldwide impact of economic and income inequality. If this book keeps that in the forefront of people's minds, then more power to it.

[Aine · Rating 3 out of 5]

“What’s odd is that two years ago everyone was defending the central banks when they were bailing out the private financial sector, even though that sector had caused the crisis. Clearly several decades of systematically denigrating the state has left its mark."

"Chronicles" covers many of the same areas as Piketty's most famous work "Capital" but in a less academic and more accessible format: the split between labour and capital, inequality (clearly), the role of central banks (particularly in a single currency), productivity and investment.

But he goes more deeply into certain topics. For example, on QE2 Piketty states: "It needs to be said clearly: the world today is in no way threatened by a return of inflation, which is now less than 1 percent in both the United States and Europe. The Treasury bond-buying program announced by the Fed comes to a total of $600 billion, less than 5 percent of American GDP. The idea that that kind of money creation would generate inflation of a few percentage lints, which in reality would be an excellent thing. Today, there’s a far greater risk of deflationary stagnation, worsened by fiscal-austerity policies. In such a context, it’s perfectly legitimate for the flFed and the ECB to lend money to governments, whose public finances have been devastated by the financial crisis and the recession. What central banks are doing is reducing interest rates in public bonds, thus somewhat alleviating governments’ budget constraints, which is always a good thing in times like these. This can also halt market speculation of the kind we’ve seen in the Greek crisis. Clearly public deficits have to be reduced. But to do so too quickly, without the help of central banks, would be pure folly. It would only worsen the recession, defeating the purpose."

On the role of central banks he states: "Most importantly, the rescue of private banks from central banks in 2008 and 2009 failed to prevent the crisis from entering a new phase in 2010 and 2012, a crisis of Eurozone public debt. The important point to note here is that this second part of the crisis, which now preoccupies is, is happening only in the Eurozone. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan are more indebted than we are in the Eurozone (with public debt levels of 100 percent, 80 percent, and 200 percent respectively, versus 80 percent for Eurozone members), yet they experienced no debt crisis. The reason is simple: the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan all lens to their respective governments at low rates - less than 2 percent - which calms markets and stabilized interest rates. By comparison, the ECB has lent very little to Eurozone governments - hence the current crisis.”

From an Irish point of view it was interesting to see the impression of the crisis in Ireland. In place of the "lazy Irish" / "Irish hangover" style stereotype, Piketty talks about the economics of austerity. Unsurprisingly, he focuses on the 12.5% corporation tax rate.

Looking back at Chronicles a few years on it seems that some questions have not aged well at all:

“One question began to eclipse all the others: will the European Union be able to live up to the hopes that so many of us have placed in it? Will Europe manage to become the continental power, and the space for democratic sovereignty, that we’ll need in order to take control of a globalized capitalism gone mad? Or will it once again be no more than a technocratic instrument of deregulation, intensified competition, and the subjection of governments to markets?”

[Martin Henson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially disappointed to find that these essays are really quite "old" now - I ended up really getting a lot from this short-form Piketty. Reading many of these vignettes of fairly recent history can be depressing, now knowing how things did (or just didn't) work out.

Some of these miniatures are really packed with insight. Can Growth Save Us (pp. 121-123) notes that world growth over the last few centuries (1.6% per year on average) is about equally shared between population growth and productivity growth. With populations stabilising overall and declining in the historical centres of development, growth must be expected to be much lower in the future (there is consideration of appropriate growth here too). However, with returns on capital significantly outstripping growth (maybe 4% versus 0.8%) rentiers win and inequality will continue to worsen - without serious policy changes.

The essay that discusses Brazil is difficult to read now in light of what has happened since it was written in 2014: "And yet, social and democratic progress remains possible on the continent. Further south, in Brazil, Dilma Rousseff ..." (p. 146). Well, we know what happened to her and what has happened since.

There are essays that cover debt obligations. Two point out the hypocrisy of Germany and France - in divesting themselves of post-war debt though inflation and repudiation - while post-crash insisting that southern Europe debt needs to be paid back in full (p. 149).

The essay For an Open Europe (pp. 165-167) covering immigration and demographics was timely in 2015. He points out that in the previous 20 years, Europe's population increase was due mainly to migration. Moreover, UN analysis shows that Germany's population will fall dramatically to 2100 even assuming an immigration rate twice as high as in France over the same period. In contrast, Eastern European countries - with both declining population (and, it may be added, significant outward migration) and policies against immigration - will see a dramatic fall in population overall, with incalculable economic consequences. On this topic, Parag Khanna's book Move: The Forces Uprooting Us and Shaping Humanity's Destiny is a must read.

Overall, as these examples illustrate, these clearly written pieces still have plenty to offer an interested reader.