Will you ever trust this site again? BusinessWeek reveals that our friend economist Tom Lehman wrote an article for the Mises Institute while taking money (maybe as much as $2,000) from an institution that turns out to be funded in part (shill!) by the very institution that Lehman was defending against government attacks: the payday loan industry. It’s true that we did not know ahead of time (the article appeared to be logical and persuasive), but nonetheless, here is the incriminating evidence of just how just how embroiled the Mises Institute is in this payola scandal: an actual article written for our monthly publication. What capitalist shills we turn out to be!
Of course we are in full crisis mode. We must hire one of those pricey consulting firms that specialize in dealing with the press during PR meltdowns, and we are all scrambling and having strategy sessions on how we should proceed. Should we admit it with full disclosure? Apologize to the world? Denounce Lehman and separate us from him forever, while piously proclaming that our editorial space is not for sale?.
When the bright lights glare down on us for our 60 Minutes interviews, we’ll be wearing plenty of powder, but surely our suffering will still be evident on camera.
Maybe we can add a note to his article: “The poor and embattled payday-lending industry, under heavy regulatory attack from the usual suspects, is so worried about the fate of its freedom to provide services that it sensed the need to pay an academic economist, the author of this piece, through an intermediary, as much as $2,000 to defend the rights it should have in a free society, and also to explain to the public what he already knows as a trained economist: that the pay-day loan industry actually serves a social purpose and should not be crushed.”
Even with this frank disclosure, will the Mises Institute survive this scandal? Just wait until all the revelations and shock concerning the money the federal government gives to nonprofits (umm, not the Mises Institute), many of whom turn out to be nothing but government shills. Oh wait: that will never happen.
