In The Long Run, Keynes Is Dead

clipped from www.jsonline.com "He said, 'If things go too far in the wrong direction, I'll just step in and fix it,' " said Lewis. "Then he died." No one is so short-term as politicians, thinking of re-election and seduced by an urge to be in charge. This is why Keynesianism has triumphed among them, said Lewis: "It's a rationalization for policies that they'd like to pursue anyway." So we all live in a $24 trillion experiment in whether, this time, stimulus will work. Two questions from one of the rats: First, if the government rigs reality by messing with the value of money, how can we expect any other part of the economy to not be distorted and dishonest? Second, if we abandon simple, comprehensible rules and rely on constant tinkering by wise leaders, what happens when we instead get leaders who, having done no work but rabble-rousing among Chicago's poor, have not the least clue about running an economy? Revered, Keynes has no answer.