Thomas Piketty has responded in detail to the FT's criticism of the wealth inequality statistics in his Capital book (see earlier post on this) - click here. Wealth inequality data is much harder to collect than income inequality data for the long run. My paper on wealth inequality in Ireland over the period 1858 to 2001 uses probate data to measure wealth inequality. The findings of my paper agree with Piketty's view that wealth has become more concentrated over recent decades.
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.