Thomas Piketty: evaluation

Transcript context

…Clearly, they were buying the services of people in German government, right? Yes — actually, no. The example you mentioned is very important because it’s exactly the example where, in fact, I don’t think any of these people, when they were in government, took money. The problem is if you let them go in the private sector and join this completely insane level of remunerations that you observe in the private sector — this is the problem. But I don’t think, in any of these countries . . . Give me an example of a political leader who became a billionaire by taking money when he was in office. I don’t know — I think they sell their votes much more cheaply than that. Most of US Congress is quite happy to pass special interest–favoring legislation. They don’t get a billion dollars for their vote. Maybe that’s an economic puzzle.…

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