Every once in a while I either publish an op-ed or make a blog post that induces incoherent rage in a certain number of readers. What do I mean by “incoherent”? That the people leaving hostile comments (or, in some cases, phone messages and emails) seem unable even to say what exactly it is that they disagree with.

Oddly, the writings that elicit such responses tend *not* to involve political commentary. Instead, they’re most often straight economic analysis, based in many cases on perfectly ordinary applications of IS-LM type reasoning.

And so it is that my latest rage-inducer was this innocuous (I thought) post on money-printing versus debt issue. As best I can tell, what set the ragers off was the suggestion that under current conditions – that is, in a liquidity trap — it really doesn’t matter whether the government covers its deficit by selling debt or just printing money, which is why, among other things, using the platinum coin ploy to sidestep the debt ceiling would be harmless. (The MMTers showed up, as usual, to insist that debt versus money printing *never* makes a difference; but that’s a different story).

Why is this such an upsetting suggestion? Well, a significant number of people, well represented among those who tend to haunt comment boards, is firmly committed for whatever reason to the Eek! Zimbabwe! view of how the economy works, under which any government that has the temerity to deviate from gold-standard orthodoxy even in a deep slump is condemning its citizens to suffering the wrath of the market gods. The appeal of this view is, I think, both political and emotional; it goes along with the general view that doing anything to help the less fortunate (especially if it involves taxing the rich) invites disaster, and it also ties in with the desire to believe that you and your friends have the True Knowledge of how economies work.

You can imagine how disturbing such people find liquidity-trap economics. And as far as I can tell, hardly anyone who started with this view in, say, 2008 has been willing to consider the possibility that four-plus years of very high growth in the monetary base combined with subdued inflation proves them wrong, and actually vindicates the Keynesians. Instead, they still react to anything challenging their worldview with rage – and especially so if it’s stated calmly and analytically.