Activity

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…

[...] The outcome of low yields on government bonds is the massive inflation of property prices [...]

Central to Keynes’s theory is an understanding of bank money not just as a means of creating purchasing power for the purposes of exchange, but also as a store of value. When, after borrowing and investing, the holder of borrowed money makes profits or capital gains, she will face decisions about w…