Michelle Bachmann Fails Economics 101 – When Will the Press Notice

Are Reporters Even Out There Anymore?

The Dismal Political Economist has often wondered when the media will start to tell the real Michelle Bachmann story, the one where her radical and totally unsupported economic ideas expose her for what she is.  It’s not that hard to do.  Like Sarah Palin before her, all they really need to do is report what she is saying in her own words.

Here is her take on basic monetary economics, from ThinkProgress.

BACHMANN: The shorthand way of describing to you what quantitative easing is is a license to print money without any value behind it…In the last two years of the Obama administration, if you pull a dollar out of your pocket, you have lost 14 percent of the value of that dollar. That means the federal government has stolen that money from you… They’ve been printing essentially valueless money and flooding it into the money supply. I don’t stand for that. A dollar in 2011 should be the same as a dollar in 1911. A dollar should be worth a dollar.

[Editor's Note: The Dismal Political Economist is a bit of a skeptic, so it took video of this statement to convince him that she actually said it.  Watch it in all its award winning glory.]

Yes, Ms. Bachmann is maybe the only person in the world to think Quantitative Easing, which is Econo-speak for the Federal Reserve System purchasing government bonds to increase the liquidity in the economy is stealing. And if it is stealing why hasn’t Ms. Bachmann reported it to the police.  Surely the Supreme Court of Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas would back her up.

And if the money they have been printing is valueless, why was The Dismal Political Economist able to exchange his valueless money that he got fresh from his local Federal Reserve Bank for a BBQ sandwich and fries to celebrate the 4^th of July?

Oh, and if they have been flooding the economy with money, where is the inflation that basic economics says will happen when a country does that? 

So now we come to the final exam question:

22.  After viewing Ms. Bachmann's statements,

A.  Is she really this ignorant of basic economics?

B.  Does she know basic economics but states these falsehoods to fire up her base?

C.  Does she know that the press will never write about how wrong she is, because her supporters would accuse them of "gotcha" journalism by printing and broadcasting her actual statements, you know, like that other person they played "gotcha" with by printing and broadcasting her actual statements?

D.  Is it that she just doesn't care if she is correct, that is not part of her personal make up?

E.  All of the above.

Ok, easy question, since everyone is on school break for the summer.

On the plus side for Ms. Bachmann, she can continue in this manner until the Press remembers that it is their job to report the news.  For the immediate future she looks safe.

(Sigh) So much stupidity, so little time.