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The nice thing about Piketty is all his data is right out in the open, on the web, and not behind some kind of crazy academic journal paywall type of thing. Yo

The nice thing about Piketty is all his data is right out in the open, on the web, and not behind some kind of crazy academic journal paywall type of thing. You don't have to take him or his detractors at face value for anything.

jshen 12y ago
exactly, and those that disagree should crunch the data how they see fit and put it out there for others to critique. Their current response reminds me of the behavior of the intelligent design movement. They try to argue over lot's of little details, "there is a gap in this fossil record, the eye is too complex to have evolved, etc". What they don't do is put forward their own point of view that accounts for the data we have.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  The fact that no alternate theory exists does not make Piketty's "theory" correct. This is true even if you hint that anyone who disagrees is Worse Than Hitler (TM). Not that Piketty really has a theory - all he has is a big data dump. If you disagree, can you concisely state what his theory actually is?
  - 001sky 12y ago
    Picketty has going for him he is looking in the right places. He's "barking up the right tree". Small data errors are like correcting a dog for poor syntax. The question for the dog is: are you barking up the right tree or the wrong one? If "the william shakespeare of dogs" himeself was 3 miles away srpouting out elizbethan sonnet-equivalent barks up the wrong tree...the verdict would still be the same. The first dog can hunt and the second cannot--the imperfection of the communication doesn't undermine the underlying correctness (in tree-selection). The grammer-nazi type questions only matter insofar as they undermine the materiality of the analysis. What's important about picketty--notwithstanding the hype--is he's looking at balance-sheets not P&Ls. That is to say, he's barking up a different tree (than income obsessed economists). Probably the right tree--nobody would "analyse" the performance of a company without a blance sheet--for the task at hand. But most macro-econ guys cannot link up the GDP equivalent to a balance sheet (they lack the data), and thus totally ignore everything a blance sheet would tell us about ROIC (eg: linkages of C & I). That is a huge "material mistake". And one that is not done or undone by general quality of the communication (eg: a typo in the maths, or a debate over "accounting adjustments")--provided those are not so massive as to be materially misleading.
alexeisadeski3 12y ago
The problem is that the policy prescriptions he recommends are not really related to his data.
- selmnoo 12y ago
  Why is it a `problem`? In almost every interview Piketty says repeatedly that he makes the policy proposals very tentatively, that readers should 'make up their own mind' -- 'write their own chapter 4' (chapter 4 is where he suggests possible policy changes).
  - alexeisadeski3 12y ago
    The jump is from "wealth inequality" to "power inequality." It's not clear that the former causes the latter. If one wants the reader to be concerned about power inequality, then he should focus his efforts upon this dynamic. Whether or not wealth inequality is rising, falling, or remaining the same is essentially irrelevant to this issue. And, in fact, it's quite obvious that the wealthy do not wield much power: Are we really to believe that the wealthy in some parts of the US prefer a 45% corporate tax rate, a 50%+ income tax rate, the inability to leave the country with their assets intact, a 50% death tax, and FATCA? It is to laugh.
    - selmnoo 12y ago
      > The jump is from "wealth inequality" to "power inequality." It's not clear that the former causes the latter. Well, there is that paper from Gilens and Page that argues otherwise (http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...): Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
      - deleted 12y ago
baddox 12y ago
> The nice thing about Piketty is all his data is right out in the open, on the web, and not behind some kind of crazy academic journal paywall type of thing. Is it? I assumed you have to buy the book, which is the oldest incarnation of a content paywall.
- selmnoo 12y ago
  At least some of the data is available here: http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/en/capitalisback http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/en/capitalisback
- couchand 12y ago
  Here [0] you'll find a lot of data by Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. [0]: http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/#income http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/#income

jshen 12y ago

exactly, and those that disagree should crunch the data how they see fit and put it out there for others to critique. Their current response reminds me of the behavior of the intelligent design movement. They try to argue over lot's of little details, "there is a gap in this fossil record, the eye is too complex to have evolved, etc". What they don't do is put forward their own point of view that accounts for the data we have.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
The fact that no alternate theory exists does not make Piketty's "theory" correct. This is true even if you hint that anyone who disagrees is Worse Than Hitler (TM). Not that Piketty really has a theory - all he has is a big data dump. If you disagree, can you concisely state what his theory actually is?
- 001sky 12y ago
  Picketty has going for him he is looking in the right places. He's "barking up the right tree". Small data errors are like correcting a dog for poor syntax. The question for the dog is: are you barking up the right tree or the wrong one? If "the william shakespeare of dogs" himeself was 3 miles away srpouting out elizbethan sonnet-equivalent barks up the wrong tree...the verdict would still be the same. The first dog can hunt and the second cannot--the imperfection of the communication doesn't undermine the underlying correctness (in tree-selection). The grammer-nazi type questions only matter insofar as they undermine the materiality of the analysis. What's important about picketty--notwithstanding the hype--is he's looking at balance-sheets not P&Ls. That is to say, he's barking up a different tree (than income obsessed economists). Probably the right tree--nobody would "analyse" the performance of a company without a blance sheet--for the task at hand. But most macro-econ guys cannot link up the GDP equivalent to a balance sheet (they lack the data), and thus totally ignore everything a blance sheet would tell us about ROIC (eg: linkages of C & I). That is a huge "material mistake". And one that is not done or undone by general quality of the communication (eg: a typo in the maths, or a debate over "accounting adjustments")--provided those are not so massive as to be materially misleading.

alexeisadeski3 12y ago

The problem is that the policy prescriptions he recommends are not really related to his data.

selmnoo 12y ago
Why is it a `problem`? In almost every interview Piketty says repeatedly that he makes the policy proposals very tentatively, that readers should 'make up their own mind' -- 'write their own chapter 4' (chapter 4 is where he suggests possible policy changes).
- alexeisadeski3 12y ago
  The jump is from "wealth inequality" to "power inequality." It's not clear that the former causes the latter. If one wants the reader to be concerned about power inequality, then he should focus his efforts upon this dynamic. Whether or not wealth inequality is rising, falling, or remaining the same is essentially irrelevant to this issue. And, in fact, it's quite obvious that the wealthy do not wield much power: Are we really to believe that the wealthy in some parts of the US prefer a 45% corporate tax rate, a 50%+ income tax rate, the inability to leave the country with their assets intact, a 50% death tax, and FATCA? It is to laugh.
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    > The jump is from "wealth inequality" to "power inequality." It's not clear that the former causes the latter. Well, there is that paper from Gilens and Page that argues otherwise (http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...): Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
    - deleted 12y ago

baddox 12y ago

> The nice thing about Piketty is all his data is right out in the open, on the web, and not behind some kind of crazy academic journal paywall type of thing. Is it? I assumed you have to buy the book, which is the oldest incarnation of a content paywall.

selmnoo 12y ago
At least some of the data is available here: http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/en/capitalisback http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/en/capitalisback
couchand 12y ago
Here [0] you'll find a lot of data by Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. [0]: http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/#income http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/#income