Morning Must-Read: Paul Krugman: Whitewashing the Crazy, Fed Edition
Alan Rappaport of the New York Times here exemplifies the biggest problem with our current policy dialogue: when it is thought to be unfair to a current of thought to even report in plain language what they have been saying, we are all in big trouble:
…when a significant wing of the political spectrum is… stark raving mad?…. There’s a temptation to soft-pedal the crazy…. Matt O’Brien notes that Ted Cruz has now joined the ‘anti-Fed crazy train’…. [But] Alan Rappeport [of the New York Times who]… does… convey… how crazy Rick Perry was… uses a euphemism….
Republicans have questioned the Fed’s moves to stimulate the economy since the financial crisis, arguing that the expansion of its balance sheet will create economic instability.
Well, actually they have spent the past six years warning about ‘currency debasement and inflation‘. The chart shows how that prediction has turned out. And that in turn makes the fact that the anti-Fed ranks are swelling, not shrinking, a much more remarkable political story than the whitewashed version would indicate.