I wrote a piece on Keynes and monetary policy for the Standard, which appeared on Thursday, 23rd October, 2008. You can read it below. Today a group of monetarist economists , supported by a range of bankers, have written to the Telegraph objecting to a public works programme to help economic recovery. They are right that excessive liabilities on the government’s balance sheet could cause interest rates to rise, but government spending has a multiplier effect, and very quickly pays for itself. They seem unaware of this economic fact. There is some overlap between our views on monetary policy as an effective tool, but I disagree with their view that UK government spending has been excessive.

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22nd October, 2008.

I am dictating this piece down the phone from Budapest in Hungary where I have just arrived to deliver a lecture to the Ybl Club. My hosts were in a state of shock on arrival because the central bank of Hungary has just raised interest rates from 8.5% to 11.5%…

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Apologies in advance . This is a long post. I am getting feedback from those who have read the Green New Deal (GND) (which I co-authored) complaining that the Keynesian policies espoused therein will simply drive us back to the 1970s, to militant trades unionism and ’stagflation’. Their concerns need a response.

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