In practice, I make more doing my actual job (philosophy professor) than an economic tutor. Which means that I'd either have to spend my time inefficiently (doing work for a lower wage, when a better-paid work is available), or I'd have to convince students to take lessons at a substantially inflated fee. Obviously, neither is economically sensible: the former not for me, the latter not for any student.
Additionally, I find, there is a massive slew of educational material regarding economic available online -- much of it free. I'd urge people to have a look at the
Foundation for Economic Education and the
Mises Institute. Naturally, I'd hardly claim that those guys are right about everything -- so very few people ever are! But they are highly experienced at dismantling the more common misconceptions about economics...
In the case of this discussion here, of course, my point is actually that if someone is debating is bad faith, the whole exercise becomes a chore, and I'd wish to get paid for that. If I'm not, I won't do it. Debating people honestly is fun, but a 'rigged' debate is pointless. If someone is uninterested in getting closer to the truth, why would I expend a lot of energy trying to teach them something? It's pointless. Someone who wishes to learn will seek out knowledge -- and find it readily. ("For when the student is ready, the master will appear.")
So when someone is clearly dishonest, my advice is: treat them as such, otherwise they'll abuse your good will. In this case, I was debating someone who is demonstrably willing to go
against his own stated arguments in order to keep arguing. To wit: he first argued that deflation would cause people to never work again, and then argued that deflation would basically be meaningless and so we shouldn't count on it being beneficial. These two statements are mutually exclusive. To anyone sane, it's clear that the truth lies between these extremes: deflation is beneficial, but not to absurd extremes. But he argues two
contradictory extremes, and ignores the reasonable conclusion.
Why? Because he wants to
argue. He actively rejects reason and logic in order to keep the argument going. Not an argument intended to produce insight, but an argument for the sake of arguing. Which means that no matter what reason I present, what logic I apply, or what evidence I offer... he'll never accept it. He'll just keep arguing, because that's what he is trying to achieve.
This is why I cease such discussions. Whenever it becomes clear that the opposite party is not interested in arriving at the truth, I stop all attempts to lead them to it. Let them figure it out for themselves.