How Do FRB Economists Get Away With Outright Lies?

(commentary by Roger Erickson)

No Peer Review? They Can Spout With Impunity?

Taxes, Transfers, and State Economic Differences
by Israel Malkin and Daniel J. Wilson

"Taxes collected by the U.S. government are paid out through transfers that promote economic equity among states."

Their subsequent comments on State Transfer Payments are conditioned by that horrible, upfront perversion.

Were they trained by Bernays himself?

Those kinds of conditionals are classic propaganda. The authors are asking the audience to swallow the initially suggested condition, as the price for even examining the completely unrelated, subsequent data.

The WHOLE POINT of fiat, is that it is NOT conditional upon any prior condition whatsoever, save only Public Initiative, and then the subsequent tolerance limits of excessive inflation or deflation.

Ignorance? Collusion? Or just dumb orthodoxy run amok? Purposeful, or Ignorant Fraud?

Apparently these geniuses never learned the dictionary definition of fiat. Nor do they acknowledge the existence of their own forbears, like Beardsley Ruml (on p.35 of the link). They do, clearly, practice the manufacturing of consent among a public they show no respect for whatsoever. They may be brainwashed acolytes themselves.

And of course, they won't reference anyone not willing to promote them for tenure in any Ivy League Departments of Orthodoxy? Or does that Academic Protection Racket extend even to the Fed?

Would you be surprised if they argued that Corporate Welfare should be considered as Off-Budget Transfer Payments too?

Nothing like making outright lies the conditional for alluring common sense. The bigger the lie, the better.

(hat tip John Lounsbury)

Irwin Schiff's Nicely Illustrated Comic Book On His Warped View of "Economics"

commentary by Roger Erickson

"How An Economy Grows, and Why It Doesn't"

Shades of Edward Bernays!   It's a fascinating mix of useful & twisted concepts, many misapplied.

The subtle but cascading misconceptions & arbitrary constraints get boring quickly ... and there's no mention of "return-on-coordination" whatsoever.

The most notable point is that Schiff seems fixated on static measures of value, and apparently unaware of any concept of dynamic value.

His perception of capital seems to be entirely static vs dynamic.

Seems a tremendous pity. Irwin, Peter Schiff's father, ended up in jail for tax evasion, but on many points he & Peter are so close to being in paradigm with modern, fiat monetary operations. It's a pity neither studied some form of complex systems - instead of only static accounting. That might have made all the difference in subtly improving their situational awareness of a very dynamic world.