IS INCOME INEQUALITY LIKE GLOBAL WARMING? As soon as everyone starts yammering about it, it goes away. “Trends like this come to seem inevitable because they have been going on for a long time–but since inequality cannot actually rise until the 1% own everything in the world while the rest of us suck on wood chips, the longer inequality has been growing, the closer that trend must be to slowing, or reversing. So the more you feel that inequality growth is a state of nature, the less likely this is to actually be true. And even very smart, knowledgeable people who have read a lot have an abysmal record at forecasting these things.”