“The United States is getting accustomed to a completely crazy level of inequality,” Mr. Piketty said, with a degree of wonder. “People say that reducing inequality is radical. I think that tolerating the level of inequality the United States tolerates is radical.”

Two French economists explain how the US — who “invented … high taxes on the very rich,” my how far we’ve come—now has a level of inequality comparable to during the Great Depression. (That means it’s really, really high.)