full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Thomas Piketty: New thoughts on capital in the twenty-first century

Unscramble the Blue Letters


It's very nice to be here tonight.

So I've been woikrng on the history of income and wealth distribution for the past 15 years, and one of the interesting lessons coming from this historical eiendvce is indeed that, in the long run, there is a tendency for the rate of return of capital to exceed the economy's growth rate, and this tends to lead to high concentration of wealth. Not intinfie cnaoetinortcn of wealth, but the higher the gap between r and g, the hghier the level of inequality of wealth towards which society tends to converge.

So this is a key force that I'm going to talk about today, but let me say right away that this is not the only irtmopant force in the dynamics of income and waelth distribution, and there are many other forces that play an important role in the long-run dynamics of inomce and wealth distribution. Also there is a lot of data that still needs to be collected. We know a little bit more today than we used to know, but we still know too little, and certainly there are many different processes — economic, social, political — that need to be studied more. And so I'm going to focus today on this simple fcore, but that doesn't mean that other important fecors do not exist.

Open Cloze


It's very nice to be here tonight.

So I've been _______ on the history of income and wealth distribution for the past 15 years, and one of the interesting lessons coming from this historical ________ is indeed that, in the long run, there is a tendency for the rate of return of capital to exceed the economy's growth rate, and this tends to lead to high concentration of wealth. Not ________ _____________ of wealth, but the higher the gap between r and g, the ______ the level of inequality of wealth towards which society tends to converge.

So this is a key force that I'm going to talk about today, but let me say right away that this is not the only _________ force in the dynamics of income and ______ distribution, and there are many other forces that play an important role in the long-run dynamics of ______ and wealth distribution. Also there is a lot of data that still needs to be collected. We know a little bit more today than we used to know, but we still know too little, and certainly there are many different processes — economic, social, political — that need to be studied more. And so I'm going to focus today on this simple _____, but that doesn't mean that other important ______ do not exist.

Solution


  1. concentration
  2. wealth
  3. infinite
  4. working
  5. force
  6. forces
  7. evidence
  8. important
  9. income
  10. higher

Original Text


It's very nice to be here tonight.

So I've been working on the history of income and wealth distribution for the past 15 years, and one of the interesting lessons coming from this historical evidence is indeed that, in the long run, there is a tendency for the rate of return of capital to exceed the economy's growth rate, and this tends to lead to high concentration of wealth. Not infinite concentration of wealth, but the higher the gap between r and g, the higher the level of inequality of wealth towards which society tends to converge.

So this is a key force that I'm going to talk about today, but let me say right away that this is not the only important force in the dynamics of income and wealth distribution, and there are many other forces that play an important role in the long-run dynamics of income and wealth distribution. Also there is a lot of data that still needs to be collected. We know a little bit more today than we used to know, but we still know too little, and certainly there are many different processes — economic, social, political — that need to be studied more. And so I'm going to focus today on this simple force, but that doesn't mean that other important forces do not exist.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
wealth inequality 10
income inequality 7
fact number 5
growth rate 5
world war 4
wealth concentration 4
lot higher 3
unequal access 3
total quantity 3
middle class 3
life cycle 3
world gdp 3
financial transparency 3
wealth distribution 2
world top 2
united states 2
wealth relative 2
total wealth 2
wealth middle 2
accumulate wealth 2
accumulating wealth 2
wealth accumulation 2
wealth inequalities 2
wealth holders 2
capital income 2
real estate 2
total capital 2
capital stock 2
wealth tax 2
small tax 2
tax rate 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
wealth middle class 2
total capital stock 2
small tax rate 2

Important Words


  1. bit
  2. capital
  3. collected
  4. coming
  5. concentration
  6. converge
  7. data
  8. distribution
  9. dynamics
  10. economic
  11. evidence
  12. exceed
  13. exist
  14. focus
  15. force
  16. forces
  17. gap
  18. growth
  19. high
  20. higher
  21. historical
  22. history
  23. important
  24. income
  25. inequality
  26. infinite
  27. interesting
  28. key
  29. lead
  30. lessons
  31. level
  32. long
  33. lot
  34. nice
  35. play
  36. political
  37. processes
  38. rate
  39. return
  40. role
  41. run
  42. simple
  43. social
  44. society
  45. studied
  46. talk
  47. tendency
  48. today
  49. tonight
  50. wealth
  51. working
  52. years