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"In a couple of days I’m going to be participating in an @EconomicPolicy Institute conference on 'excessive wealth disorder'—the problems and dangers created by extreme concentration of income and wealth at the top." nyti.ms/31RYdC6
"While popular discourse has concentrated on the '1%,' what’s really at issue here is the role of the 0.1%, or maybe the 0.01%— the truly wealthy, not the '$400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff' memorably ridiculed in the movie Wall Street." businessinsider.com/income-gap-bet…
The conference will be livestreamed here: epi.org/event/taxing-t… 
More Krugman: "Where does this influence come from? People often talk about campaign contributions, but those are only one channel. In fact, I’d identify at least four ways in which the financial resources of the 0.1 percent distort policy priorities:
"1. Raw corruption. We like to imagine that simple bribery of politicians isn’t an important factor in America, but it’s almost surely a much bigger deal than we like to think.
"2. Soft corruption. What I mean by this are the various ways short of direct bribery politicians, government officials, and people with policy influence of any kind stand to gain financially by promoting policies that serve the interests or prejudices of the wealthy.
"This includes the revolving door between public service and private-sector employment, think-tank fellowships, fees on the lecture circuit, and so on.
"3. Campaign contributions. Yes, these matter.
4. Defining the agenda: Through a variety of channels — media ownership, think tanks, and the simple tendency to assume that being rich also means being wise — the 0.1%has an extraordinary ability to set the agenda for policy."
4. Defining the agenda: Through a variety of channels — media ownership, think tanks, and the simple tendency to assume that being rich also means being wise — the 0.1%has an extraordinary ability to set the agenda for policy."
Starting now!
