Robert Barro channels Marie Antoinette

In his Wall Street Journal column this morning, Barro argues that after a generation of policies that have increased income and wealth disparities, what we really need are policies that further increase income and wealth disparities.  For the sake of "liberals," however, he would countenance an exemption in his proposed VAT for food. I guess he is not willing to consider the importance of such an exemption to, say, people who don't have a lot of income.

Barro is among a class of economists to whom the median American is invisible.  They could all be played in the movies by Lionel Barrymore.