Robert Skidelsky on John Maynard Keynes

Good interview and interesting analysis of the personal history of Lord Keynes. Skidelsky does a good job of describing Keynesianism in 15 minutes.

My main criticism is that I feel he failed to adequately address the malinvestment issue i.e. the concept that ‘waste’ could be too large for stimulus to be long-term effective. He did a good job however of arguing the malinvestment trade-off is less consequential when the unemployment rate is high, leading to lost potential output. Listen to this bit just before the 14 minute mark.

If you want a quick and dirty primer on Keynes, this is it.

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