<noun.act> he accomplished little due to the mismanagement of his energies
the act of distracting; drawing someone's attention away from something
<noun.act> conjurers are experts at misdirection
Misdirection \Mis`di*rec"tion\, n. 1. The act of directing wrongly, or the state of being so directed.
2. (Law) An error of a judge in charging the jury on a matter of law. --Mozley & W.
3. The direction of another's attention to an unimportant place or matter, for the purpose of being able to perform an action undetected; as, misdirection is an important part of a magician's art. [PJC]
Many of us are dumbfounded by recent examples of misdirection, such as the frivolous antitrust case brought by state attorneys general accusing insurance companies of causing the tort crisis.
The scale of the economic misdirection of the late 1980s in property and elsewhere, and the subsequent bad debt write-offs, would indeed suggest a large element of distortion.