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Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
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On Keynes and Keynesianism

11 May 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Kimball Corson
There is no doubt that Lord John Maynard Keynes is the most useful, seminal and powerful economic thinker of the last two centuries. His book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money -- usually referred to as The General Theory -- sealed that assessment. His theory of managing aggregate demand has been adopted in over 140 countries of the world and there is a whole industry of international economic counseling firms helping those countries to apply it. Of course, Politicians don't always listen, but they want to hear.

The success of Keynesian economics is so resounding that almost all capitalist governments around the world have adopted its policies, even China. And the result seems to be nothing less than the extinction of the economic depressions in the US. Before World War II, eight U.S. recessions worsened into depressions (as happened in 1807, 1837, 1873, 1882, 1893, 1920, 1933, and 1937). Since World War II, under Keynesian policies, there have been eleven recessions (1945-46, 1949, 1953, 1958, 1960-61, 1970, 1973-75, 1980-83, 1990-92, 2000-01, 2008- 10) and not one has turned into a depression.

Conservatives rail against Keynesian economics because, based on ideology, they doctrinairely oppose any government intervention in the economy. However, this is a position not even Milton Friedman adopted. He agreed intervention by the FED was necessary to stabilize the economy and avoid depressions. As he put it, "In some ways we are all Keynesians now." However, conservatives have never mounted a successful argument against Keynesian economics except to baldly or without accurate support simply declare it has failed, which has to be the greatest intellectual fraud of the century. Not even Friedman had good grounds to argue against intervention when it suited him.

Unfortunately, The General Theory is difficult to read. It is not very well written and it requires a rather high level of economic knowledge and sophistication to understand it. Many economists today simply don't understand it well and what is taught in many universities as Keynesian economics is simply a bad characterization of Keynes' thinking, often using the interest rate as the equilibrating variable when we all know it isn't. It is erroneously simplified in graphs.

A good simplification to start learning about Keynes' General Theory can be found here, but it is much to simple a view of Keynes to do more that get a beginner without training started. http://www.sailblogs.com/member/thewanderer/420872. I will do a series of essays on Keynesian economics, beginning with this one, so more can come to understand it and why conservatives oppose it so.
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Vessel Name: Altaira
Vessel Make/Model: A Fair Weather Mariner 39 is a fast (PHRF 132), heavily ballasted (43%), high-aspect (6:1), stiff, comfortable, offshore performance cruiser by Bob Perry that goes to wind well (30 deg w/ good headway) and is also good up and down the Beaufort scale.
Hailing Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
Crew: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
About:
Kimball Corson: I am a 75 year old solo sailor, by choice. However, I did take on a personable, but high maintenance female kitten, now a full grown cat, named KiKiPoo when she is sweet, or KatKatPo after she has just killed something like a bird or bat. [...]
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Although I was a lawyer and practiced law with good success for thirty years, creating significant new law, I never really believed in the law, the politics of law or in the over reaching self-interest of most lawyers I met. Too much exposure to Nietzsche and other good and seriously thoughtful [...]
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Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ