let me give you one piece of evidence from pickett's charge. there is a soldier who are -- who participated in the charge, and the regiment might consist of 10 companies of 100 men each. about 1000 men. the companies that smaller groups called messes. 10 to 12 guys that you cooked with. the people you knew most intimately and had the most familiarity with. there was a virginian soldier at pickett's charge who goes in with his mess, dozen men he knows the best, which includes the figurative band of brothers but two or three actual brothers also, and i believe that he is the only survivor. pickett's charge took such a serious toll on these units. so he is the only one who comes back. if he were just fighting for the camaraderie that he felt for the guys he fought with, at that point he would expect that his willingness to go into battle is operate.ate this this guy has not just lost his figurative band of brothers, but literally. yet, this guy, like so many others, continues to fight. they put him in a different company and he keeps fighting. i d

we get to pickett's charge and we say, what was the general thinking? lee was so depressed that he suddenly lost all of his imagination and creativity and marched these men across an open field. this overlooks the strategic possibilities of 1863. ee to douired that l what? there are so many possibilities that can be gained politically through attacking. --e his army was engaged july 1 stands as one of the most complete victories that the army in northern virginia ever achieved. it was a day of impressive assault that nearly cracked the union line in a number of places. it makes no sense why he would suddenly relinquish the offens s ive. it is not in sync with the realities of what was on the ground. you stand in front of the lee monument and the next thing you the to do is -- interpretive markers don't really explain where the troops were. it appears that he simply lined them up along one offense of ive front. 90% of the visitors have no idea where the charge was formed. it is off to the right by the house. those troops were relatively concealed for mos

by the way another place where we're seeing it suddenly this discussion was about thomas piketty pickett he has done a fantastic job about inequality putting the facts on the table but now from the left from the right you get the financial times saying the data is wrong but that that's bogus that product they're trying to reinhart and rogoff because he's not going to do is he's a damn good empirical economist but he's theoretical story is weak and that because it's a new keynesian and that's where the new keynesians and don't want to take on a critique what's missing about it well when are they going to put power into the story when are they going to put unions where are they going to put the minimum wage is deeply into the story so that really explains how the economy works but i'd really like your take on that now. crudely wrote in a separate post about the whole flim flam thing made that you know brought up the argument is this and i want to read you a quote a fairly desperate attempt to claim that the great recession and its aftermath somehow proved that john roberts and nicholas cal

carrie pickett reports, mohammed elibari is at the center of a controversy involving allegations that former d.h.s. secretary janet napolitano gave him secret clearance which led to him downloading classifying information. according to representative louie gohmert he shopped that around to a reporter. elbiari, a supporter of the muslim brotherhood is also an active participant on twitter and mocked the freakout by u.s. talking heads discussing the terrorist activities relating to the islamic state of iraq and syria. isis. so he says that. he thinks it's comical watching pundits freak out over watching the islamic state of iraq and syria's caliphate. he goes on in another tweet in response to a tweet back that says so we don't need to be outraged? he says, as i've said before, inevitable that caliphate returns. choice only whether we support e.u.-like muslim union vision or not. top advisor i, a in the united states of america homeland security department says it's inevitable that we have an islamic caliphate over the united states, it's just whether or not we're going to embrace a eur

returning for their second day, from phoenix, arona, it's the pickett family.tin, texas, it's the murphy family. everybody's here trying to win their self a lot of cash and the possibility of driving out of here in a brand-new head-turning ford fusion, folks. let's play "feud." give me dave, give me michael. let's go. ["family feud" theme plays]

[cheering and applause] and from phoenix, arizona, it's the pickett family!ering and applause] everybody's here trying to win theirself a lot of cash and a shot at driving away in a brand-new stylish ford fusion, right there, folks. let's play "feud."

pickett piketty to advocate different tax rates.was fascinating because you did not debate the findings. you debated the results out of the findings. where do you land? >> i don't debate the findings. is pulling01% dramatically away from everybody else. i land squarely on the side that says that is what it is, i would rather it not be but it is. but let's worry about the people at the bottom. the fantastic earnings of people that make $100 million a year are completely irrelevant. they need preschool education, food stamps, minimum wage, earned income tax credit. it is things like that relevant near the bottom. very different things are relevant up at the top. >> this is barry ritholtz. let me ask you a related question to that. aren't we dealing with an ongoing battle between the things we want and how to pay for it? politically, all the things you mentioned are things much of the country supports. but we can't seem to develop a consensus on how to pay for it. does that huge wealth , how do we pay for these things? >> that is a ver

negative for employment in seattle we're going to have to wait and see but the guardian points out that pickett is work doesn't amount to a clarion call for all governments to drastically raise the minimum wage now his point is more subtle than that so can you walk me through what pickett is writing basically indicates regarding the effect of minimum wage on jobs particularly picotee specifically. piggy's basically saying is exactly what i'm seeing in that is that you know that you can get more income for workers who have a higher propensity to spend and that it bolsters the economy and some of those costs can therefore be recruit through that effect but at the same time he's not saying that if you have an enormous job that somehow that's actually going to be beneficial to the economy because that's just going to really crush small business in particular now i know what i find interesting we were just researching this earlier today and that you know in europe they're proposing the minimum wage kick in october scuse me in britain specifically and there they do it by age bracket. it how much you

point margaret i want to ask you about the book at the moment right now what do you make of thomas pickett is because he's made a book on income inequality in terms about how to frame the discussion and the right policy prescription that emanates from the. i think it's still a very good job of bringing the whole discussion of inequality to the forefront it's something that economists of ignored for quite a while part of because it was it was what we call normative it involves opinion on what should be rather than what is which is more scientific and so the discussions about inequality really been shoved to the background within the economics profession and we've been afraid to address those questions so the good thing about this book is it's really bringing that debate to the forefront and i think we'll see a lot more discussion in washington and elsewhere about how we can handle this problem whether it be through better education taxes wealth taxes that that sort of thing i think with a book falls a bit short and this is a comment i'm not the first to make for sure is that it's policy pre