Free speech, capital in the 21st century and other news and views for Thursday 24 April

• Video: Piketty, Krugman, Stiglitz, and Durlauf on ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’ - “”The French economist Thomas Piketty discussed his new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century at the Graduate Center. In this landmark work, Piketty argues that the main driver of inequality—the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth—threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. He calls for political action and policy intervention. Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Steven Durlauf participated in a panel moderated by Branko Milanovic.”
• The Red Line and the Rat Line – Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels
• John Menadue: This is about more than a bottle of wine – “To mix my metaphors, the bottle of red wine that Barry O’Farrell received is only the tip of an iceberg – a sleezy world of lobbying, influence-peddling and corruption.”
• Forget Silicon Valley, meet Silicon Bali – “Before I interrupted her, she was busy making tweaks to Mailbird, the 18-month-old company she co-founded, which seeks to streamline the often-clunky Microsoft Windows email system. Already, the eight-person company has attracted thousands of users and glowing attention from trade publications such as TechCrunch. And she isn’t the only tech entrepreneur writing code late into the night here – cybercafe billing firm SmartLaunch and virtual laboratory Labster are also busy working in a place most people go to disconnect.”
• Free speech from xkcd

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