We completely agree. Reading Keynes, particularly the General Theory, is very difficult and his admirers like to tell you it’s because he is so profound.
We do not find it so after long study.
He was, however, very skilled at making money in the market himself.
One of the more fascinating accounts of his life concerns his having an audience with FDR, after which he is said to have said that he was appalled by how ignorant FDR was of economics.
We have had only one president trained in economics.Reagan had a degree in the subject and it showed. Among others Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge had an understanding of how people act economically. Kennedy did one good thing, he cut taxes. Politicians are dynamic people and as such do not have time to bother with such a boring subject in college. That is why we do not tend to get presidents who understand it and why we do tend to get economic advisers who tell the president he can perfect the economiy by fiddling and jiggering.
Many finance people, folks who get rich in the market and running businesses are not economists. Finance is the art of making money for yourself and your employer, of getting things “funded.” and directing and redirecting streams of money. It is great for raising money and selling products. It is disastrous when finance men are put in charge of the economy.Paulson is a finance man.He has a very limited understanding of economics. Or he understands it but is focused on the narrower and more remunerative area of Finance for his own gain and his allies’ gain.