In a column about the French economist Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the 21st Century, David Brooks writes, "Piketty wouldn't raise taxes on income, which thriving professionals have a lot of; he would tax investment capital, which they don't have enough of."
That's simply inaccurate. On pages 512 to 513 of his book, Professor Piketty writes, "Levying confiscatory rates on top income is not only possible but als to the only way to stem the observed increase in very high salaries. According to our estimates, the optimal top tax rate in the developed countries is probably above 80 percent....The evidence suggests that a rate on the order of 80 percent on incomes over $500,000 or $1 million a year not only would not reduce the growth of the US economy but would in fact distribute the fruits of growth more widely while imposing reasonable limits on economically useless (or even harmful) behavior."