http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...23-column.html
Catchy name for easily debunked frightwing meme.
"The
invaluable Barry Ritholtz labels them cranks, which seems pretty fair, even charitable. But even
James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute is unnerved by the degree that "conspiracy theories that government is manipulating the data to hide skyrocketing prices" have moved into the mainstream of rightist thought.
Pethokoukis points his finger at
Amity Shlaes of National Review, whose effort to revive the economic reputations of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover now encompasses two volumes. Earlier this month, Shlaes yoked some casual personal observations to the work of a discredited inflation truther to suggest that "inflation is higher than what the official data suggest."
And so a meme is born." LATimes