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The article quotes from a critic of Piketty, Scott Winship, but the strange nature of of the quotes (highly selective and including quotes on irrelevant matters

The article quotes from a critic of Piketty, Scott Winship, but the strange nature of of the quotes (highly selective and including quotes on irrelevant matters) made me suspicious. Here are the latest tweets on the matter by him: 1/Quoted in Bloomberg today re #Piketty but sounds like I side w him on rising wealth ineq & US wealth ineq>Europe. 2/To be clear, I don't. Think his original results failed to make that case, which is why I'm less worked up than some abt alleged probs. 3/But UK--&, I now believe, US--methods need to be explained by #Piketty, else looks pretty bad. Just not CONSEQUENTIAL 4 overall thesis This is the part of the article that quotes Winship: > Scott Winship, an economist at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and notable critic of Piketty's analysis, said the FT's allegations weren't "significant for the fundamental question of whether Piketty's thesis is right or not". In an email to Bloomberg news agency, he wrote: "It's hard to think Piketty did something unethical when he put it up there for people like me to delve into his figures and find something that looks sketchy … Piketty has been as good or better than anyone at both making all his data available and documenting what he does generally."

mpweiher 12y ago
Not sure what your beef is, your quotes etc. exactly match what the Guardian wrote about S.W.: 1. He disagrees with Piketty's conclusion 2. He finds the FT's criticisms insignificant wrt. Piketty's conclusion. So: he also thinks Piketty is wrong, but not for the reasons the FT claims, and he thinks that what the FT claims is inconsequential to whether Piketty is wrong or right.
- QuantumChaos 12y ago
  Reposting my reply to your other comment in this thread (feel free to continue discussion on either thread). According to Winship, Piketty's results are wrong/irrelevant for other, independent reasons. But not everyone shares this view, so Winship is clarifying that, for people who were initially convinced by Piketty's analysis, the FT criticism is important. But it is not important for Winship because even without the FT criticism, he has independent reasons to discounting Piketty's analysis. I hope this explains my "beef" with the use of Winship's quotes.

mpweiher 12y ago

Not sure what your beef is, your quotes etc. exactly match what the Guardian wrote about S.W.: 1. He disagrees with Piketty's conclusion 2. He finds the FT's criticisms insignificant wrt. Piketty's conclusion. So: he also thinks Piketty is wrong, but not for the reasons the FT claims, and he thinks that what the FT claims is inconsequential to whether Piketty is wrong or right.

QuantumChaos 12y ago
Reposting my reply to your other comment in this thread (feel free to continue discussion on either thread). According to Winship, Piketty's results are wrong/irrelevant for other, independent reasons. But not everyone shares this view, so Winship is clarifying that, for people who were initially convinced by Piketty's analysis, the FT criticism is important. But it is not important for Winship because even without the FT criticism, he has independent reasons to discounting Piketty's analysis. I hope this explains my "beef" with the use of Winship's quotes.