Is Keynes Misunderstood?

Freepers' Ebola freakout continues. As it ages, it's getting more and more conspiratorial, and thus less boring and more amusing.

But lets let that continue to cook over the weekend. For today, lets see Freepers take on Keynsian economics.

MrB loves economics by analogy:

Keynes only makes sense if you believe that you can take water out of the deep end of the pool and pour it into the shallow end to make the shallow end deeper.

However, Keynesian economics does fit hand in glove with leftist/humanist beliefs - that everything could be perfect if the right people were given enough power to make things perfect.

DUMBGRUNT thinks Keynes isn't so bad, but can't be bothered to look it up.

IIRC Keynes ‘stimulus’ was to use surplus funds for short term and quickly rebuild the surplus.

I would look it up and reread it; but it makes my brain hurt!

Pearls Before Swine knows the problem is in the interpretation, and the 1970s.

I have a BIL who is an economist. He says he had to read Keynes in grad school, and that it can be interpreted in many ways. What is called Keynesianism now is just the way it wound up be interpreted in the 70’s.

arthurus finds economics hard to understand, which means Keynes is a bad author.

Keynes cannot be anything but “misunderstood.” His writing is very poor. I have tried several times to read Theory of Money...etc and cannot make of sense out of it. Paragraphs do not hang together. His arguments do not fit his assertions. What people “understand” about Keynes is the official interpretation of his book and the things he later said he wrote. His writing simply does not make sense. Everyone should find a copy of the book and read it. Read it carefully. If you just skim the lead sentences in the paragraphs and go straight to the conclusions you may feel you know what it is all about. If you analyze it it becomes simply turgid and irrational ramblings

DaveyB is pretty sure Keyne's gayness meant he was a hedonistic nihilist.

Keynes was a homosexual with no vision for a sustainable future for his progeny. (Children are born and raised by hetero-sexual unions.) Keynes future outlook was summarized by himself, “...in the end we are all dead!” His real outlook eat, drink, sodomize and then die ...the end. In contrast Solomon wrote wisdom for the ages “ A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children...” Proverbs 13:22

muir_redwoods is as charitable as he is simplistic.

Keynes was simply wrong. However, i believe if he could somehow see what things have been done in his name today even he would understand his error.

Rockingham educates us on post-WW2 history.

Keynes was a socialist. Here's why.

As WW II ended, Britain elected a Labor government that promised socialism in full measure, with the nationalization of major industries, public health care, and intensive regulation for the common good.

Since Britain was exhausted by war, broke and without credit, the new socialist government looked to America and sent the much respected Keynes to negotiate a package of grants and loans. Fortunately, Keynes' arrogance killed any prospect of success.

Keynes opened the conference in Washington with a long statement to the effect that Britain had a strong claim on America because Britain had fought longer and sacrificed more in the war than America had. In other words, in Keynes' sales pitch, Britain's wartime sacrifices meant that she was entitled to call on America to finance her embrace of socialism.

As it was, Keynes got nothing. Britain had to pay for socialism by herself. The dismal consequences of socialism eventually led to the election of Margaret Thatcher and the unwinding of much of the socialist state that Keynes had supported.

Still not seeing the socialism bit...

arthurus is pretty sure it was all a hoax.

Keynes suggested before his death that the original was a parody. It was, in fact, written very like those theses that MIT students and others from time to time get accepted into the peer reviewed journals after which the writers announce that it was all a nonsense conglomeration of jargon and tautology. Keynes got accepted and promoted before he got to the point of announcing his Hoax and kept his mouth shut, maybe.

Terry L Smith calls Keynes a baboon, and then thinks Galbraith came before Keynes.

For all the years before this Keynes baboon was given credence, the nation had been operating under the foundational work of one John Kenneth Galbraith, whose teachings I learned, while in high school.

Terry L Smith later falls back on the old standard:

who was “the man with the plan”, in the time of The Founding Fathers?

Might we return to THAT person’s writings?

If it's not the late 1700s, it's crap!!