Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty‐First Century" is certainly the economics book of the year. We have been asked numerous times to appraise his ideas.

Here are some brief thoughts on four issues that matter a lot, in our view. Two have been poorly discussed in the financial press, and the other two have been ignored completely.

Today's long period of very easy money and very low yields has distorted the financial system. This will cause unintended consequences in the near future as QE ends.