This is a variant on 'get your subjects to ask the wrong questions'. It is not as powerful, because it assumes that the right question has already been asked and the risk that they will find the right answer is significant. It is only damage control to come up with the wrong answer. You academics, press and educational system should be helpful here. By stuffing historians, economists and academics and other groups that can not fund themselves with voluntary demand for their utterings, with lots of subsidies, they are likely to find the wrong answers for you as if guided by an invisible hand.

Examples are

'War ended the great depression'

'God created the universe'

'Lack of government intervention caused the great depression'

'Gays in the Dutch troops caused the Sebrenica slaughter'

'More money should fix failed government program X'

'Economic crisis are caused by too much production'

'Freedom of the tax slaves caused problems, they handle money irresponsible, the government should show them how to borrow and spend responsibly'

'Stupidity of subjects caused the problem, despite us running the educational system'

'Freedom caused the crisis, coercion is the solution' (you can still give this answer after 15 crises)

Do not tell small lies, but reverse truth 180 degrees.

So after borrowing and spending like a drunken sailer on shore leave, say the problem is not your borrowing, but speak of a 'savings glut' as the culprit (Greenspan about asian saving). Always seek out the most virtuous as scape goats, they are most likely to start being even more productive to make up for their perceived wrong doings. You can not manipulate parasites, because their tools are manipulation. Your policemen then should not go after criminals but after decent citizens who are speeding or parking on the wrong hour on the wrong date.