(no subject)

[alexseanchai]

If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made, well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

More worrisome is that the researchers excluded data that contradicts their hypothesis (that having national debt greater than 90% of GDP slows the economy) and gave heavier weighting to data that better supports it, but seriously? We wrecked the Greek economy and we're trying to wreck the UK and US economies based on an Excel error?

Comments

[silveradept]

Fraud would be an accurate description at this point. As would calling anyone whoop used this data to advance their agenda charlatans, fraud, and monsters.