"The financial crisis is draining the rich of some of their riches."

Robert Frank on income inequality in the WSJ:

"Some economists say it would be wrong to abandon efforts to restrain inequality based on a momentary fall.

"Inequality cannot be totally undone by the financial bust," Mr. Saez says. "Policy makers now have a golden opportunity, like Roosevelt, to do something more permanent."

Mr. Saez says the next president should follow the example of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and impose crisis measures -- tax increases for the wealthy, massive public-works and jobs programs -- that helped usher in more than 40 years of more even wealth distribution."

I don't find this view convincing. There are too many difference between the present and the mid-twentieth century for such nostrums to be useful. I'm not saying that it isn't an important issue, only that:

1) Higher taxes on the wealthy ( Might work a little )

2) Massive public-works ( On what? Do we want to encourage sprawl, for example. The restrictions on building are different. Check out the difference between building the Bay Bridge and the recent retrofit. It's just not the same as earlier years )

3) Jobs programs ( That was when unemployment was huge. What's being proposed now? )

My main problem with this approach is lack of specificity. In all fairness, Mr. Saez and Mr. Frank might have such specific plans, but, until we see them, these are just nostrums.