And Thomas Piketty is well within the research tradition of economics, which is why Capital is so important. Among other things it makes things more difficult for the partisan hacks, as you term them. Not that they ever seem to suffer consequences, witness Reinhart and Rogoff. Growth in a Time of Debt simply did too great a service to the donors' interests for the authors to ever be seriously discredited.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."