By Kai H. Kayser (an actual economist)
June 26, 2026
A dear friend, a very cultured and intelligent person, regularly drives me crazy with opinions he delivers as ironclad truths. The issue here is that these statements are utterly wrong and even contradict most of his other views. Yet he keeps saying things like “of course you need government, how else would we keep the rule of law?” or “I’m using printed money my whole life and never had a problem—you’re projecting some weird paranoia into fiat currency like it’s the anti-Christ.”
When I answer him and show that even the Federal Reserve itself admits to having devalued the US dollar by a whopping 96% since 1913, he falls silent and replies, “Well, that’s indeed crazy. I would have never thought that, but I’m not an economist—these things are too specific for me.” A most acceptable and intelligent admission, I must say… only for him to proclaim, three months later, how right Alan Greenspan was—mere days after Greenspan’s passing.
So, where does that even come from?
I have met not just hundreds but actually thousands of people following that same pattern. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, undergraduates and graduates, 401k holders and real estate owners, private health insured and mortgage-paying citizens. Really, thousands.
Intelligent people. Not economists, but people who are very good at their jobs. People who are otherwise quite the critical thinkers.
I have met them in the US, all over Europe, and in Southeast Asia. I will meet them in other parts of the world too, I’m sure.
Why does their thinking lose all critical adherence when it comes to economic or political issues? What powerful spell controls them?
It’s the pseudo-intellectual shit media. In the US it’s the New York Times, in Germany Der Spiegel, in Spain El País, and so on. These half-academic, fully socialist outlets create an atmosphere between the lines of a club—the club of the superior thinkers: “We are in the know, we understand the game and nobody will fool us. We think deep and quick and see right through the traditionalists’ lies and authoritarian ambitions—here, we revealed it again: another wanna-be Mussolini lurking behind the suit!”
Whatever one of their favorites does will be lightly criticized while making clear that the greater good outweighs all concerns. Essentially, whatever wrong their boys or girls do, it’s all acceptable because the alternative would be way worse, or so they say.
In the NYT and similar papers, hypocrisy manipulates gullible intellectuals. The god complex of the envious tempts the virtuous pretensions of the club. Opponents are the deplorables, the chauvinists, the non-progressives, the backlashers, the Trumpsters, rednecks, white trash cavemen devoid of our refinement, finesse, and culture.
We, the members of the club, the intellectual elite, we in the know—we look down upon these pitiful creatures who just don’t understand the need for central planning and a strong government implementing the policies that superior intellects bestow upon the undeserving. Of course these rebellious individualists need to feel the strict but ultimately benevolent hand of the semi-gods—for their own good!
With IQs just slightly above average and career prospects far below the corporate warriors, they feel wronged in this unjust society where “capital” dictates the rhythm and crowns other heads. But not for long—as we may not have fully read Marx but keep his works much like a shrine on the shelf. Or, substitutively, have a framed picture of Che Guevara subtly justifying our existence.
The mentioned friend of mine came from there until he woke up to the madness of open borders in the US. He held his nose when voting Trump in 2024, but knows it was the only way to close those damn borders. Yet when it comes to the uniparty, fiat money, public debt, monopoly of violence, and federal authority—he keeps following the NYT. How do I know? He proudly repeated: “It’s my one and only source of information, that’s how good they are!”
And what about the 96% devaluation that impoverishes the working class and wipes out the middle class? “Well, man’s nature is driven by greed, you cannot change that, you can’t fight nature.” The moment you explain it’s not nature but a handful of human actors running central banks with the sole purpose of redistributing the people’s fruit of labor into their own pockets, you get a knowing shrug and a “so what, it’s always been that way.” But Putin is bad, Trump insane, and libertarians silly—fools whoever is not bowing to the mighty high priests and all-knowing sages of legacy media and Ivy League academia. The NYT and its ilk, minions of the central planners, obedient bootlickers of those in power, are doing what they are paid to do: spin doctoring, distracting, and obfuscating.
We, the awe-inspiring, tell you the world is not black and white and you fail to see the nuance and complexity as we do—when we say “white and black it is.” When we say “Democrats good, orange man bad,” it is wise. When you say “fiat money crippled all empires that ever implemented it,” you’re primitive and use too broad a stroke. You can’t say Rome fell because of currency debasement—how ridiculously oversimplified.
Oh, even the mainstream-leaning AI confirms it? Oh well… the thing is, I’m not an economist…
Why, oh why, can you not see that the club is bullshitting you?
Eichengreen’s In Defense of Public Debt is indefensible.
Greenspan’s selling out—the man knew exactly what printing money does: “Gold and Economic Freedom”, 1966 (https://www.usagold.com/278707-2/)—is indefensible.
Krugman’s “transitory inflation” (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/opinion/transitory-inflation-covid-consumer-prices.html) is indefensible.
Theft and fraud are NOT intersubjective but indefensible, even if your NYT claims otherwise!
Wake up… cancel your subscription… and start thinking critically without the blinders of critical theory.
