I found this link in a discussion about deflation, which is starting to pick up steam as the new Cause of Our Destruction. It takes you to a page with a handy chart (yay visual aids!) explaining deflation, the deflation spiral, and how it can be remedied.
I thought this was pretty great until I realized it was using a false dichotomy in it's explanation. Can you spot it? If your economic views are similar to mine you'll probably see it pretty quickly. Think about it for a minute before reading the next paragraph.
Did you see it? It's all good until it gets to the part about how to deal with it once the interest rate gets near zero. Specifically, it's this: it identifies massive government spending as the only way to combat deflation. Oddly, there is no mention in this beautiful and otherwise useful chart about lowering taxes or cutting spending. The choices are reduced to spiraling unemployment or massive spending. Bad chart! Bad, bad chart!
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