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And if, during a boom, the demand for loans expands beyond the capacity of the economy – in other words, clients apply for and bankers create too much credit, which is then used to chase too few goods, services and speculative assets – the money supply expands. In this case, excessive borrowing a…

The economics profession regards the subsequent failure of economic activity as the new norm – ‘secular stagnation’. Interest rates are thought merely to reflect in a passive way this dismal outlook, one expected to extend indefinitely into the future.

The progressive ‘euthanasia of the rentier’ was for Keynes the price society paid for securing full employment, decent public goods and services, and economic stability. Given that the rentier was hardly likely to engineer his or her own demise, then the assertion of public authority over the finan…