Hi clo,
Harumph.
If the data are reliable, that is shocking.
But it also confirms my opinion. Republicans don't need facts to generate theories. They believe what they believe regardless of evidence. And when confronted by a contrary fact, they either presume it is untrue or ignore it or try to change the rules to suit their theories.
Witness, the response to the lack of hyperinflation after QE1, QE2 and QE3. It isn't "okay, I surrender - my theory has failed and I need to find a new one." It's "the published numbers aren't real" or "the theory is right but the timing is wrong." As if that changes anything.
Reality has already confirmed something that such folks will not admit. Inflation does not occur when printing money in a high unemployment, sub-zero-bound environment (even when doing so in fairly high volumes), so long as the central bank retains its reputation. That is the point.
And that simple fact destroys a portion of the economics of the right. Its model insisted something was bound to occur which didn't. That hyperinflation would occur as an immediate consequence of QE regardless of the economic environment. That's a failure of theory which should lead folks to search for a new one. But they don't of course, imagining time or the multitudinous seas can wipe the blood from their hands.
Of course it may occur in a different environment. That is normal. No one suggested otherwise. When the economy is stable and employment rates improve, inflation will reappear. That is not an area of disagreement. But it changes nothing. The Federal Reserve can use QE to diminish the impact of deflation in the current environment in the same way that it tightens money to reduce inflation when the economy is overheating. QE is a valid tool in a deflationary setting. But it is a temporary measure which the Federal Reserve will wish to reverse when the economy begins to overheat. Economics is contextual.
If your theory cannot accommodate this in real time, you need a new theory.
So they also do the same thing with birth certificates. The same bubble.
Maybe Fox News can lead them to think they won a plurality of the vote in the House.