It’s too intellectual. If you want a one-page flimsy, it would need to be dumbed down a bit. Add some color. A graph or two would do nicely. The author’s name should be more Uhmerikan sounding in order to qualify any level of pathos.

I had an argument over this very topic with my father this weekend. If I tried to hand him this page to show my position, he’d be baffled, and probably tell me off for being a “liberal”.

We got on the subject because he insisted that Nixon was extremely conservative. I fed him Nixon’s “We are all Keynesians now” line — dad’s never heard of Keynes, and has no idea what that means. Dad still believes — insists! — that every dollar produced is backed by gold in Ft. Knox. I have no idea why.

We got on *that* subject because he told me that a vote for Ron Paul would be “throwing my vote away”, and if one person in every district had done so in 1960, we’d have had Nixon in 1961. (My response was, “So what?”)

We got on **that** subject because he thinks the war is a good idea. (Never mind that he dodged the draft, that’s *different*!) He believes this, because he’s met soldiers in the airport, returning from Baghdad, who insist that we’re “needed over there”.

This is the audience you need to reach. I’m not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, but instead I’m one of the few weird mutant freaks who likes to read about economics. Who you need to reach is, well, everybody else. Good luck.

Yeah, So this sounds like a guy trying to SOUND smart rather someone trying to COMMUNICATE a sound Message. First thing you learn in business writing is “Keep it Simple” Keeping it simple means being Clear and Concise instead of using words like “unremunerative.” Instead – try using “hardly profitable” (even though that is more words, it is clear and concise.) The other thing taught in business writing – to communication, you need a listener – which means if your listener doesn’t understand what you’re saying, then you are MERELY making Noise. People don’t care about things they don’t understand.

Your Constructive Criticist,
Henry Clay DuQuesnay

Inflation is a function of supply and demand.

The more money put into circulation increases demand for goods and ergo reduces their purchasing power.

IE prices don’t go up on goods that remain in steady supply until more dollars worth less chase them.

If you want to quote an economist, how about Rothbard’s “Myster of Banking” in which he uses the analogy of Gabriel doubling everyone’s cash holdings overnight?

Come on, if one page is too much, why bother? Dumbing down would be just that — dumbing down. It’s fine as it is.

Face it, even if it were reduced to one sentence, “Inflation does not cause higher prices, higher prices are caused BY the inflation” I’d wager nine out of ten people you hand it to would respond, “I don’t get it”.

The lack of understanding of basic economics by “the people” is truly frightening.

Here’s my favorite quick explanation, as provided by DownsizeDC.org. I doubt they’ll mind me posting it here, since they encourage forwarding their emails to everyone I know.

How the FRN (Federal Reserve Note) Monopoly Works

Choice is good because it allows competition. Monopoly is bad because it leads to price fixing. Monopoly control over what people use for money provides the greatest price-fixing power of all, because it impacts ALL of your economic transactions. The Fed can manipulate the price of absolutely everything, by increasing the number of circulating dollars (inflation), or by decreasing them (deflation).

You already know what it means when counterfeiters inflate the money supply. They use their fake money to get something for nothing, taking wealth from others without creating any wealth of their own. It’s a form of stealing. But the long-term consequences of counterfeiting are even worse than the initial theft . . .

If the counterfeit dollars were allowed to stay in the economy, instead of gradually being removed from circulation, the result would be an ever-growing inflation of the money supply. This inflation would trick businesses into making a disastrous mistake.

If you were a widget maker you would see an increased demand for your widgets because of the extra dollars pumped into the economy by the counterfeiters. This sense of increased demand and increased wealth would be the “bubble” (or “boom”) that always follows an inflation of the money supply.

Your widgets would start to fly off the shelves faster than you could make them. You would have to increase prices to maintain inventories and invest in new production to meet the increased demand. But this increased demand would be an illusion, because . . .

Everyone else would raise their prices too, for the same reasons. Rising prices would remove the perception of increased wealth, and soak up the extra spending power created by the counterfeit dollars. This would cause the demand for your widgets to shrink back to its old level, but with a wicked twist . . .

The increased inventories and expanded production capacity you created in response to the inflationary boom would turn out not to be needed. Your widgets would start to gather dust on the shelf and you would have trouble paying your bills. The result?

You would lay-off recently hired employees and close your recently expanded production facilities.

First came the inflationary boom, or bubble, and then the bust, or recession.

Extra FRNs created by the Fed work exactly the same as extra FRNs created by counterfeiters. They allow those who get the dollars first to get something for nothing, followed by a boom, and then a bust.

The Fed has numerous ways to create new FRNs out of thin air. Economists cloud these methods in complicated jargon, and the talking heads on TV make it all sound perfectly normal and even necessary, but the result is exactly the same as with illegal counterfeiting.

The government uses new Fed-created dollars to get something for nothing, paying some of its bills with the new money before the monetary inflation has time to raise prices. You pay the bill later through the resulting price increases and the economic recession that follows. Monetary inflation is simply a hidden tax.

Given the above explanation it should come as no surprise that the greatest boom and bust in American history happened immediately following the Fed’s birth in 1913. Fed inflation put the inflationary “roar” in the “Roaring Twenties” followed by the biggest bust ever, the Great Depression.

All past inflations, booms, and busts were created through essentially the same process, including the recent stock market and housing bubbles. The Fed is simply the government’s latest-and-greatest tool for legalized counterfeiting.

IYHO,

I understand it. You understand it. The “crybabies” all understand it.

The majority of folk who frequent this site all understand it.

Who the hell else does? Mises, both the man and the institution, are wonderful — but neither one is having much of an impact on how stuff actually works.

I’ve been reading this site for years. I have yet to see any positive change in public fiscal policy.

When you sit on an intellectual high horse, it’s difficult to reach the rest of the world. They’re too far down beneath your stirrup-straps for notice. And then you complain they keep getting in your way, preventing you from reaching full gallop. Wonder why?

Communication needs to be targeted to be effective. If this paper were intended for *you*, yes, it would be perfect. As a pamphlet to people who walk in front of the FED, it sucks. Think about your Aunt Betty. Lovely lady, isn’t she? — she hosts wonderful garden parties with other ladies of her age who like to lunch. A fine churchgoing lady, who believes that forced universal healthcare is Christianly, and that evil brown-skinned terrorists want to sneak across the border to blow up her hibiscus garden.

Would Mises’ fine pamphlet gain any traction with Aunt Betty?

Who’s more likely to walk by any one of the FED offices and collect a pamphlet? You, or Aunt Betty?

Yes, it’s difficult to understand for the majority of folk who attended public school in the last — I’d say at least 45 years, given my own parents’ orientation. Do you then reach these people by giving them a work beyond their ability to comprehend? This is insulting! Aunt Betty — who you know is a septugenarian — would be offended if you told her she needs to go back to high school! Mr. Huckabee is such a nice young man, she doesn’t have time to listen to you ramble on about how money shouldn’t grow. After all, isn’t that what banks are for, to make money GROW?

Suffice to say, Mises didn’t have Aunt Betty in mind in 1950 when he wrote this. He didn’t have to. I wonder if he could have comprehended the existence of your Aunt Betty in 1950.

Is the opposite of “elite”, “delete”? Whatever it is, go thou and do thus.

Keep Mises. His works are the foundation of this school. But just as more people have read and undestood Atlas Shrugged than any work of Aristotle, just as more people have read “Dancing Wu-Li Masters” than anything Einstein wrote, and just as more people watch “Dancing with the Stars” than have watched real dance competitions on PBS — you have to judge your audience and submit the message more effectively.

Target this pamphlet elsewhere.

~Jaq

Jaq-

You are correct. It is more important to teach down to get understanding at first. A few of those who read a simpler handout are more likely to do further research if they understand in the beginning. A tough to understand handout would be like my son’s 3rd grade teacher “refusing” to teach down to the kids and insisting that they understand Advanced Algebra because she understands it today. What is wrong with starting with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division? Not every person who is out there understands advanced economics, but 99% of people understand something if explained in a clear, consise manner. It is not the “principle of the stand” but the “principal of a fair economic system” that needs to be communicated.

Joe

Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be a shocking experience…

ok, if you can’t pony up a million dollars to burn outside the fed, there is another great monetary story with enough drama to at least engage the general public’s interest.

operaton andreas/bernhard/andrew – the nazi operation to destabilize the british war economy by massive counterfeiting. it’s a great yarn, and when it’s ss boss heinrich himmler doing the counterfeiting (instead of ben bernanke), people can latch on the sheer devilishness of it.

there’s a great daily article for mises.org waiting here:
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp5.html