
Piketty in R markdown - clarkm
http://simplystatistics.org/2014/06/30/piketty-in-r-markdown-we-need-some-help-from-the-crowd/
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rtpg
That distorted graph is pretty explainable by the fact that he has only 6
data-points, and that by default Excel's graphs just treated those dates as
labels (instead of a time series).

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sanderjd
And yet the chart is pretty clearly _presented_ as a time-series. I think
"well, he just used Excel defaults..." is a better argument for the
prosecution than the defense.

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rtpg
I just don't think there was malice in the mistake. It _is_ misleading,
though.

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tinco
Great project. I'm only about 15% into the book according to my Kindle, but
it's interesting enough that I'm definitely going to check out the status of
this project when I finish it. (could be a couple of months at the rate I'm
going now)

The validity of the numbers depends on more than just the maths though, do you
guys plan on going through the sources as well?

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eloisant
Is it interesting for the layman as well, or is it a book for economists?

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furyg3
I'm also only about a quarter through, but so far it's interesting for non-
economists. Some tolerance of technical explanations and simple formulas (i.e.
not panicking at greek symbols) is required, but nothing unusual for the HN
crowd.

This book has generated a lot of discussion, and so I went into it with my
controversy-goggles strapped on. This is absolutely not required, as the book
(based on what the author says he will cover and has covered so far, anyways)
is more of a history and description of capital than political narrative or
policy-making.

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ogrisel
I agree that the tone of the first chapters is rather neutral and objective or
at least not as controversial as expected. I think the author's
recommendations which by definition are subjective are to be found in the last
chapter which I have not read yet.

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touristtam
mmmm should you not consider the World Top Incomes Database?

[http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/](http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/)

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touristtam
The website I have linked to was actually referenced in the book (if you had
just only taken the time to read it ...). SO I thought, it was actually
something the author of the post should consider when working on the dataset
from the book.

Still I find it weird to be downvoted for a suggestion. :/

[edit] removed non relevant comment.

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ap22213
I think the book and the data is very interesting. But, I'm curious - why the
effort? Isn't his book, data, and reputation as an economist / historian
vetted by other experts in his field? Certainly they'd be the best people to
say whether his methodology and conclusions are legit or not.

That is, do we really care about what the FT says? To me it's similar to the
Washington Times making a statement about a book on evolution.

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saalweachter
While not everything can be reduced to incontrovertible math-like proofs, I
think we -- data scientists, statisticians, software engineers -- could build
a world with a lot fewer legitimate arguments.

Imagine a Wikipedia of science, logic, and reasoning. Instead of summarizing
consensus, you instead build a vast database of primary facts, data, and then
on top of it formalize your assumptions and arguments so that it is plain to
see how conclusions follow -- or don't -- from the bare facts and reasonable
assumptions. You could build almost math-like proofs, with all arguments and
counterarguments categorized and catalogued.

You could build a _verifiable_ consensus. Given two different schools of
thought, for instance, two different schools of economics, you could reduce
each to the set of assumptions or faulty logic that distinguishes them. Some
economists believe one thing to be true, some another, and they argue with one
another and some people are convinced and some people aren't. Where does the
difference arise? Is there a faulty chain of reasoning underlying one (or
both!) of them, or is there a difference in the assumptions each group makes?
If so, is one of these assumptions unfounded, or can it be tested and verified
so that the assumptions that go into each school can be reconciled along with
the conclusions that follow from them?

I think we have an opportunity, not to be smarter or more informed than the
experts in their different fields, but to have each argument _once_ , online,
crowd-sourced, rather than having the same arguments crop up again and again
and again between individual experts arguing with each other. We can bring
organization and permanence.

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praxeologist
I think you are in a blind alley. Yes, there is a singular epistemological
error underlying every flavor of mathematical, scientistic economics. There is
no actual "equilibrium point" where some say and there's no "coefficient of
human volition" that we can calculate decisions like we could calculate the
path of an atom.

After about 100 years of trying economics this way, there is still nothing
close to a model that has reliable predictive power as we would expect with
other natural sciences using the hypothetico-deductive method. I advocate
instead the axiomatic-deductive method of the Austrian School. If you like,
here is more on why what you want to do doesn't work from von Mises:
[http://mises.org/daily/3540](http://mises.org/daily/3540)

