Via Michael Roberts

A new research paper reveals that over 150 years income and gains from the ownership of capital (property and financial assets) or more exactly wealth is much greater than the expansion of new value (economic growth).

Thomas Piketty in his famous book of 2014, Capitalism in the 21st century,argued that if the return to capital exceeded the rate of economic growth, rentiers would accumulate wealth at a faster rate than incomes grow. This report confirms that for the last 150 years. The rich get richer from owning things rather than working for it.

The only exceptions were in wars or in periods when the rate of profit on capital falls fast as in the 1880s, 1930s and 1970s and in the current depression.

The rate of return on everything