We got Grubered and now we're Krugged.

[Newt]

Krugman is the Economist who planned Obamnomics

Expect to hear Krugman explain how he deceived for the greater good.


BUSTED: Paul Krugman removed 20 years of data from a chart to show a correlation that wasn't really there

"In the post, Dr. Krugman tries to show how much interest rates matter by comparing the Fed Funds Rate with Housing Starts. He shows a chart and declares that there appears to be a strong correlation. Except, as this emailer notes, he appears to have shifted the chart to make it appear as though there is a correlation where there isn't one.


See what was done there? The period in the early 1960's was removed, and so was the period from 2000 on. In other words, out of a 55-year time period, Dr. Krugman decided to remove 20 years' worth of data. For those keeping track, that's removing almost 40% of an entire data set just because the data didn't fit the narrative. And when you add those years back you get a result that shows a very weak correlation:

I can understand why he might remove the period from 2008 on. But why remove the 1960s data and the early 2000s? After all, the 2000s were the period of Alan Greenspan's "conundrum" where interest rates appeared to have no correlation to the housing market. That's not just an important part of this discussion, it's a critical part given that it includes the housing bubble and is outside of the mythical Liquidity Trap era.

This is why people often complain about economics. When economists take a data set and just blatantly alter it to fit their argument it doesn't do much to help build credibility for their work — especially when it is done within a post that basically declares economists smarter than everyone else who says they might not have the whole world figured out.

NB — James Montier wrote an important paper discrediting an important modeling technique used by many economists. And it deserves a better response than "I am super smart and here's one [altered] chart to prove it."

Read more: http://www.pragcap.com/fun-with-charts- ... z3aufQtkR1

Pattern of Progressives:


quote:
When economists take a data set and just blatantly alter it to fit their argument it doesn't do much to help build credibility for their work — especially when it is done within a post that basically declares economists smarter than everyone else who says they might not have the whole world figured out.



could easily apply to this:

quote:
When climatologists take a data set and just blatantly alter it to fit their argument it doesn't do much to help build credibility for their work — especially when it is done within a post that basically declares climatologists smarter than everyone else who says they might not have the whole world figured out.