NPR

The entire basis of my passion and ambition as a writer and your editor is to debunk the commonly held views that mainstream media operatives like National Public Radio’s Kai Rysdal regularly champion.

It’s not just a difference of opinion. I firmly believe that the ideas promoted by Mr. Rysdal, Ben Bernanke, Timmy Geithner, and most of inhabitants of the White House and Congress are not just wrong, but dangerously so.

The ideas promulgated by the Kai Ryssdals of the world are responsible for your and my decreased standard of living over the past 30+ years.

While the central planners in power continue to devalue the dollar and shoulder our children and grandchildren with debt, Kai Ryssdal cheerily informs us that all is well. The market is up, or down. Unemployment numbers are higher or lower. But the dulcet tones of Ryssdal cheerily assure that these numbers aren’t very serious.

There’s a very pervasive myth that people like Mr. Ryssdal tacitly endorse: our central planners CAN effectively manage the world economy. It’s believed that a handful of PhD economists can accurately steer the growth of the economy AND simultaneously maximize employment.

They can do so, as far as the debt apologists believe, by changing the supply of money. They believe that by jiggering money supply, they can increase or decrease production in the economy.

How? Well, they believe – and I’m not making this up – they believe that you can BOOST demand for goods and services by providing MORE currency units. Doing so somehow makes people more likely to spend, and therefore boosts production.

They have equations that “prove” this belief, and entire textbooks filled with jargon, rules, theorems and recipes for growth and employment.

This idea is flawed not only because it ignores the likelihood that individual actors will not act according to an equation. It’s also flawed because it simply hasn’t worked. The value of the dollar has fallen by approximately 99% since the Federal Reserve was created in 1912. We’ve experienced dozens of recessions and several severe depressions since 1912.

The actions of the Fed have not ameliorated depressions or recessions – to the contrary – they have aggravated and caused them. Lengthened them. Broadened them.

How else to you explain the recession of 2008 – originating in the financial sector that is hand in glove with the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, and closely regulated by the FDIC and the SEC?

How else do you explain a financial system that was then bailed out by the Fed and the Treasury, under the close watch of the FDIC and the SEC?

Now, I don’t mean to single out Kai Ryssdal. He might just be the most likable apologist. He’s certainly more amiable than Tim Geithner or Ben Bernanke.

But my point is that we should revile these actors. We should call them out for their blatant lies and faulty beliefs. We should re-take the high ground as a population who believes in honest money, honest government and a big fat denunciation of central planning.