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Well, let's see how his supporters would defend this.
Quote:
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But, according to a Financial Times investigation, the rock-star French economist appears to have got his sums wrong.
The data underpinning Professor Piketty’s 577-page tome, which has dominated best-seller lists in recent weeks, contain a series of errors that skew his findings. The FT found mistakes and unexplained entries in his spreadsheets, similar to those which last year undermined the work on public debt and growth of Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.
The central theme of Prof Piketty’s work is that wealth inequalities are heading back up to levels last seen before the first world war. The investigation undercuts this claim, indicating there is little evidence in Prof Piketty’s original sources to bear out the thesis that an increasing share of total wealth is held by the richest few.
Prof Piketty, 43, provides detailed sourcing for his estimates of wealth inequality in Europe and the US over the past 200 years. In his spreadsheets, however, there are transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. It also appears that some of the data are cherry-picked or constructed without an original source.
It will be interesting to what extent things are wrong.
If Its that he is 100% wrong I will be shocked, but if its just "oh look its only 90% as bad as he indicated" then to be honest I wont care at all.
And given the large data showing that the .1% is growing further and further from us while gaining the majority of the wealth and income, I don't believe we will be finding him 100% wrong.
It will be interesting to what extent things are wrong.
If Its that he is 100% wrong I will be shocked, but if its just "oh look its only 90% as bad as he indicated" then to be honest I wont care at all.
And given the large data showing that the .1% is growing further and further from us while gaining the majority of the wealth and income, I don't believe we will be finding him 100% wrong.
Wow. So much for expecing a liberal to be a deep thinker.
When someone attempts to use facts, numbers, and statistics to make a finding, and then it is determined that the facts, numbers, and statistics are skewed, missing, or otherwise erroneous, then its not logical or wise to rely on a study whose integrity has already been compromised and undermined. This is a universal understanding in the world of intellectuals.
I wish I could say that I am in disbelief that such a principle does not not resonate with the Mental Midgets on the left, but sadly I cannot.
Wow. So much for expecing a liberal to be a deep thinker.
When someone attempts to use facts, numbers, and statistics to make a finding, and then it is determined that the facts, numbers, and statistics are skewed, missing, or otherwise erroneous, then its not logical or wise to rely on a study whose integrity has already been compromised and undermined. This is a universal understanding in the world of intellectuals.
I wish I could say that I am in disbelief that such a principle does not not resonate with the Mental Midgets on the left, but sadly I cannot.
Ah yes name calling "mental midgets" About what I expect from some folks here.
Look so far I havent seen any hard data, im seeing accusations that the data is wrong, accusations that its cherry picked.
Do I believe it could be wrong? Yes. Do I believe that its 100% wrong? No.
Let me give you an example.
Data shows that stepping in front of a car moving at 60 miles an hour is fatal 53% of the time says new study.
Random article says "They cherry picked data and had transcription errors!"
Reality-they listed brain dead, but breathing as "dead", aka cherry picked data, and they got a counties numbers wrong....turns out that its only fatal 45% of the time.
You argument then is that we should go play in traffic because its safe-you shouldnt rely on that. And then state that this is the universal understanding in the world of intellectuals.
Now...If Piketty's book was the ONLY source of the data then yes, I'd agree to saying 'hey lets slow down and ignore it" But its not. Theres MANY other sources of this data, and its been brought up in various ways a LOT.
Whats different? He brings it all together. Provide a LOT more data, going back a LOT further. If his book was the only thing saying these things I'd agree with you.
What's interesting is that FT claims to have his data, "cleaned it up," and showed where all of his errors were in the data in their refutation. Yet they don't seem to show either data set, the explanation of where he went wrong, or any other information. The only link seems to be an opinion piece on their own site without the data either.
Is their "critical analysis" a super secret that they cannot show anyone?
Yeah, and I have a Pegasus at home...but it's invisible, people can't touch it, and it doesn't eat or produce waste in my garage. Anyone who believes this can come to my home and pay me to look at an empty garage.
Seriously...if people are going to extol how they have the evidence to prove some one wrong and debunk them the first question people are going to ask is if they can see it. Are they that stupid?
And in a surprise to no one who has read at least some of the book, turns out the FT might just have missed some of the notes in the data they were looking at....
If the UK data that the FT used was correct “would mean that Britain is currently one of the most egalitarian countries in history in terms of wealth distribution; in particular this would mean that Britain is a lot more equal than Sweden, and in fact more equal than what Sweden has ever been (including in the 1980s). This does not look particularly plausible.”
No, not wrong but there is a small, with in 5%, difference depending on the type of analysis done. It is a dispute between methodologies. BTW even The Economist's 5% changed graphs all show the same broad trends Picketty pointed out. All in all it is a minor difference both of which can be argued are equally valid (meaning with in the margin of error) but neither of which dispute the broad trends.
It will be interesting to what extent things are wrong.
If Its that he is 100% wrong I will be shocked, but if its just "oh look its only 90% as bad as he indicated" then to be honest I wont care at all.
And given the large data showing that the .1% is growing further and further from us while gaining the majority of the wealth and income, I don't believe we will be finding him 100% wrong.
Or is a one line response the limit of your ability to demonstrate factually why someone is incorrect?
It's a scientific analysis of the economy. For one to suggest that it's acceptable to ignore errors that have been found is illogical.
When the data is wrong, it questions the validity of the entire project.
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