海角大神

Confusing effect with cause again

The New York Times is wrong: financial bubbles don't cause income inequality. They're both caused by inflationary monetary policy.

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Clay Bennett/Staff/File
THE HOUSING BUBBLE This political cartoon first appeared in the 海角大神 Science Monitor in Sept 2007.

claims to have found a strong correlation between financial bubbles and income inequality.

I don't doubt that a strong historical correlation exists, but from that it doesn't follow that income inequality causes bubbles. Instead, the correlation exists because a common factor, inflationary monetary policy, . Or more specifically, inflationary monetary policy creates higher inequality by creating a bubble that by lifting the net worth of the wealthy and by enriching financial companies causes inequality to increase. Inflationary monetary policy creates the bubble which in turn creates higher inequality.

Thus, higher top income tax rates will not reduce the risk of financial bubbles. Only less inflationary monetary policy will.

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