Before the Internet, and before the recent resurgence of interest in the Austrian School of economics, conservatives might have fallen for the likes of this guy, and his article “The Conservative Case for QE2.”  They might have been a little uncomfortable about it, but they had to take what they could get.

Now, on the other hand, we have quite a few actual free-market economists who will be taking phonies like this to task from now until the end of time.  Really believe in the free market?  Then don’t listen to this bozo.  Follow free-market economists instead.  That’s the message.  Meanwhile, the “conservatives” peddling this stuff will have to explain, alongside Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, why markets can’t solve our problems, why we can’t be market “fundamentalists,” we need to accept some amount of central planning, etc.

This is not a position they have been in very often.  They’re going to have to get used to it.  Young people, which side are you on?

(a) “Come on, now.  Let’s be reasonable.  The economy needs to be stimulated; it’s just a matter of how.  And anyway, when the Fed creates lots of cash, that’s the free market in action!”

(b) “Haven’t you had enough of these stooges?  Do you support the real free market, or is your gripe with Nancy Pelosi simply that she’s intervening the wrong way?”

Thanks to Bob Murphy for putting this latest example in his place.  There will be more who posture as free-market economists and who peddle position (a).  They will run into the Murphy/Austrian buzz saw.  Here’s hoping the biggest boo line of 2011 is “I’m for the free market, but….”