Thread by @ThomasEWoods

This week the AP told us that "economists" are warning that we shouldn't want prices to fall.

These "economists" should switch fields, and maybe go into shoveling horse shit, since they're good at that already 🧵

These "economists" are lackeys for the status quo who don't want us entertaining the possibility of prices that trend downward rather than upward.

Because then maybe we'll start questioning the regime under which we live.

Duncan Weldon writes in The Guardian: "Falling prices might sound like a good thing, and in individual cases they often are" -- hey, he throws us a bone there! -- "but a falling general price level is usually associated with severe economic strains."

Where's his evidence? Not one word of proof is supplied, because "deflation causes depressions" is just something all right-thinking people know and doesn't require evidence.

I have a novel idea: how about we check the data?

Economists Andrew Atkeson and Patrick J. Kehoe actually bothered to look at the record in a May 2004 article for the American Economic Review called "Deflation and Depression: Is There an Empirical Link?" They evaluated the evidence from 17 countries over a period of 100 years.

Their conclusion: "A broad historical look finds more periods of deflation with reasonable growth than with depression, and many more periods of depression with inflation than with deflation. Overall, the data show virtually no link between deflation and depression."

So much for that argument.

Then Weldon warns about falling prices by asking, "Why buy anything today if it will be cheaper next week?"

This is how he thinks your brain works: "I'm not ordering a cup of coffee this morning because I bet tomorrow it'll be 5 cents cheaper!" And when tomorrow comes you'd in turn say: "No way am I buying today if it'll be 2 cents cheaper tomorrow!"

What actually happens in the real world is that the phenomenon of time preference exists: I prefer goods in the present to the same goods in the future. So I'm going to break down and buy that cup of coffee rather than forego consumption in perpetuity.

Even today, we buy laptop computers despite knowing they'll be cheaper a year from now. In the Weirdo Economist version of the argument, none of us will buy anything until we're on our deathbeds, and then just as we're expiring we'll finally grab an iPad.

Another bogus argument would be that it's hard for businesses to make a profit if prices are falling. And then there's the "sticky prices" argument. These also fail.

And ultimately, it's a question of whether you believe these economists, or your own eyes.

Two of the periods of the most robust economic growth in US history were those from 1820 to 1850 and 1865 to 1900. And prices fell about in half in each case.

The Fed lackeys who pose as economists today have to undermine the very idea of a falling price level so we don't get subversive ideas like: why do we need the Federal Reserve when it's taken our falling-prices economy and turned it into a rising-prices one?

They'll also try to tell you that the economy was so much more unstable before the geniuses at the Fed took over -- sometimes you'll get that, but you can answer that after reading my free book Our Enemy, the Fed.

Remember, it was monetary issues that got Ron Paul into politics -- and also Javier Milei.

But you're thinking: reading about it must be the most boring thing in the world.

Have faith in ol' Woods, dear friend!

And because the Fed has ruined the value of your money, I'm being a sport and not even asking for any. Doesn't cost you a cent, and it's full of truths the SOBs won't tell you; what's not to love?

Click and get it:

OurEnemyTheFed.com