Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Talk About A Big Gap In Logic!—Slicing Up Rick Ackerman

So Rick Ackerman posted a piece that I spotted on Zero Hedge—which surprised the hell out of me. Either Tyler and his gang of merry pranksters are losing their nerve about the downward trajectory they think the U.S. economy and monetary policy is headed in—or they ran the piece for shits and giggles.

“Nothing personal, buddy, you’re just dinner.”
Ackerman’s piece said, in effect, that dollar hyperinflation was impossible. His post was titled “Big Gap in Logic Weakens Hyperinflation Argument”.

I’ve got a rep for being a hyperinflationist—which isn’t exactly true: I’m a dollar hyperinflationist, but a euro deflationist. A friend called me an economic agnostic, which is pretty accurate (and kinda cool, actually): I look at the data, look at the political realities influencing macro-economics, look at the arguments, then make up my mind, regardless of what the various sects of the religion known as Economics deem orthodox.

I suppose my heterodoxy comes from my education: I was trained in philosophy, with emphasis in epistemology (theories of knowledge), Hegel’s political philosophy, and formal logic. That background makes you not want to join a crowd—any crowd. And it makes you willing to question even your most prized assumptions.

So when Ackerman said he had proof positive that hyperinflation in America was impossible—that he had, as he claimed, found a “big gap in logic”—I was like, “Cool: Show me.”

So Ackerman . . . well, he tries. In his piece, he writes:
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