> Assuming arguendo that there is nothing misleading
> about the Minn Fed figures
There are relevant priors, as the econometricians like to say. I understood the Minneapolis Fed to be a bastion for Real Business Cycle theorists. Such theorists believe macro fluctuations are the result of external shocks and do not originate from within self-regulating markets. All flux is merely the self-correction to changes Out There by omniscient markets.
The Boston Fed has also responded to them:
<http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/11/there-is-too-a.html>
Shane