Bloomberg: the past five years don’t make Keynes look good

Via Anthony Evans, a refreshing piece of commentary by Amity Shlaes for Bloomberg:

All hail Keynes. That’s the message in President Barack Obama’s decision to nominate Janet Yellen, Peter Diamond, and Sarah Bloom Raskin to fill vacancies at the Federal Reserve. This trio makes sense only if you believe the philosophy of the most influential economist of the modern era, John Maynard Keynes.

What makes them odd choices is that the events of the past five years don’t make Keynes look good. Other schools of economic thought come to mind instead. One is the public choice school, which holds that Keynesianism uses crises as pretext to enlarge governments.

Recent history also validates Austrian economics. This camp asserts that government involvement in markets is inherently dangerous. Austrians were among the first to warn that the hybrid status of government sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could lead to disaster.

I recommend the whole article.

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