By Hammad Siddiqi
The writer is a research fellow at the Risk and Sustainable Management Institute at the University of Queensland and an associate professor of economics at LUMS.

Something quite extraordinary has been happening lately. A French economist is receiving rock star treatment in the US. Some are calling it a silent revolution in the field of economics. The economist is Thomas Piketty, and his claim to fame is a 700-page book he penned on inequality and its relationship to capitalism. The book, originally in French, has just been translated into English, and has made it to a number of bestseller lists in less than a month.
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By PETER BUFFETT

I HAD spent much of my life writing music for commercials, film and television and knew little about the world of philanthropy as practiced by the very wealthy until what I call the big bang happened in 2006. That year, my father, Warren Buffett, made good on his commitment to give nearly all of his accumulated wealth back to society. In addition to making several large donations, he added generously to the three foundations that my parents had created years earlier, one for each of their children to run.
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