Over on this side of the pond we don’t tend to worry too much about columnists slicing and dicing their data to support whatever preceonceived notion they have….that’s what they’re for. The Americans tend to be a little more po-faced about such things, actually wanting even opinionated writers writing opinions to be factually correct.
That’s why Daniel Okrent’s passing shot at Paul Krugman has generated such heat as he accuses him of being , well, somewhat selective, in his presentations. Krugman responded in a speech captured here.
My own view is here in two TCS pieces. I don’t even presume to know whether Krugman plays with numbers but he most certainly was misleading in his representation of the problems in the UK pension system and the possible comparisons with Social Security reform.
Tom Maguire has his list of , umm, well, whether you call them misrepresentations or simply errors is really up to you and Jim Glass has his, with as an extra bonus, possible defenses ofthe statements made.
As above, this is all good clean fun and something that is vested with a great deal more significance over there than it is over here. We expect the partisanship being shown, they still having this rather endearing belief that political columnists should not be, err, political.
Leave a Reply