To make matters worse, Giles also points out that, aside from some apparent transcription errors, Piketty “simply adds 2 percentage points” to an Excel formula in order to fulfill his predisposition. Giles claims there’s “quite a lot of this sort of thing in his spreadsheets.”
For the United States, Piketty yet again appears to make up data to fulfill his theory that wealth inequality increased at the end of the 1900s. Even for the modern data available, the French economist can’t help but adjust the numbers to make things appear worse than they actually are. Under Piketty’s reasoning, America is once again experiencing a dangerous burst of wealth inequality.
But as economist Bob Murphy shows, the “U.S. is currently hovering near the lowest level of wealth concentration in the hands of the 1% in recorded history.”
