I read the entire paper and did not see where they listed what the purpose of spreading such a lie was nor how it could so readily be spread if it was so easily demonstrated false by a simple graph. Perhaps you can snip that section and forward it? As I said I don't have knowledge enough to know this paper actually refutes what it claims it does. Did China in fact halt all interbank lending to the US as they claimed they would and if so is it significant and is it captured by this papers data? Did GB's interbank lending fall by 70% as the FT (I'm still pretty sure it was on the FT's website I saw this) claimed and graphed and is this significant to the US economy? Is it captured by this papers data? I know how easy it is to present selectively chosen data to make a point that may be in error and I do not have the expertise necessary to determine if that is what is happening in this case. Easier to believe this one paper is cherry picking data to make a point than everyone else is part of a grand conspiracy so I remain quite skeptical. Other papers by other Fed economist claim this problem is real, and they too have nice looking graphs so why believe these economists rather than the others? Maybe your technical knowledge of banking is much greater than mine (mine is fairly low) and you can see where and why other Fed economists are trying to fool us. If so maybe you can explain why the St. Louis Fed and Boston Fed economists are full of crap and the Minneapolis economists are the ones we should really listen to? The Minneapolis crew may be correct and after reading the papers I don't get anything like a definitive answer either way but as I wrote my expertise here is not high enough to allow me to really critique these authors works. I'm simply going with both the majority view from Fed economists and the non-conspiratorial view. Maybe that will turn out to be a mistake, who know? You write that "The purpose of the lie is that people don't read papers written by Fed economists, they just read what Time Magazine tells them. Public opinion is shaped by those that have the microphone, not those that have the facts." This isn't the purpose at all unless the point of the lie was to prove that people read Time more than papers by Fed economists but surely there is an easier way to prove this point isn't there?
John Thornton