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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Boston University, had to correct herself Saturday evening after mixing up two "very different" economists during a lengthy Instagram discussion. "UGGGH TYPO,” the freshman congresswoman wrote after confusing John Maynard Keynes, an early 20th-century British economist who theorized that government spending was linked to economic growth, with Milton Friedman, a free-market American economist and 1976 Nobel Prize winner, according to The Washington Examiner. Ocasio-Cortez mistakenly combined their names into "Milton Keynes." “I was just reading today about how in 1930, famed economist Milton Keynes predicted that by 2030...

However, one lesser known aspect about his life was his pedophiliac activity. Economist Saifedean Ammous’ book, The Bitcoin Standard, details some interesting factoids about Keynes’ life. Ammous started off by detailing how the family unit is destroyed by government largesse: Substituting the family with government largesse has arguably been a losing trade for individuals who have partaken in it. Several studies show that life satisfaction depends to a large degree on establishing intimate long-term familial bonds with a partner and children. Many studies also show that rates of depression and psychological diseases are rising over time as the family breaks...

“In the long run, we are all dead.” –JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES______________________________________________________________________________________________________________INTRODUCTION John Maynard Keynes, an English economist and author, has been held in high esteem for several decades thanks to his groundbreaking work in economics in the early 20th century. The theory he popularized in an attempt to better understand the Great Depression, aptly named Keynesian theory, revolutionized demand-side economic policy at the time. For those who haven’t studied the riveting subject of macroeconomics since college – sarcasm, of course, for everyone out there that doesn’t live and breathe the subject like we do – Keynes advocated for increased...

The big political news from last week was David Brat’s upset win over Eric Cantor for Congress. Brat is an economics professor at Randolph Macon and from his research it’s clear that he has strong political views embedded in his economics. It’s perfectly fine to be a political economist, but when it leads to an obviously flawed understanding and presentation of reality then it becomes a real problem in my opinion. For instance, in his website Brat says the following: “Our national debt has skyrocketed, reaching over $17 trillion dollars. What our leaders in Washington fail to mention is...

How a Soviet mole in FDR's inner circle triggered Pearl Harbor – and its dire relevancy to our conflict today. ... On December 7, 1941, 353 Japanese aircraft delivered a shocking blow .. Nearly seven years later, Harry Dexter White, a senior official in the Roosevelt Administration, appeared to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities . Numerous witnesses, including Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, had implicated White in involvement with the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. ... Harry Dexter White, a Harvard PhD and Assistant Treasury Secretary, had played a major role in creating the World Bank...

When David Lipton, a promising economist, was finishing his graduate work at Harvard in the early 1980s, he faced one of those potentially life-changing choices. He had one job offer from the International Monetary Fund in Washington, the multinational institution that for 70 years has served as a lender of last resort and dispenser of orthodox economic advice to countries that get into financial trouble. There was also an offer of a teaching job from the University of Virginia. Unsure of which path to take, he turned for advice to an intellectually restless and charismatic assistant professor, a Frenchman named...

This year the tide changed in the economy. Growth seems finally to be returning. The tide also changed in economic ideas. The brief resurgence of traditional Keynesian ideas is washing away from the world of economic policy. No government is remotely likely to spend trillions of dollars or euros in the name of “stimulus,” financed by blowout borrowing. The euro is intact: Even the Greeks and Italians, after six years of advice that their problems can be solved with one more devaluation and inflation, are sticking with the euro and addressing—however slowly—structural “supply” problems instead. U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer...

Paul Krugman has once again decided to call a few “fools and knaves” who disagree with him by some nasty names. In fact, the Nobel Laureate’s habit of lashing out with vitriolic playground language is pretty well documented; and, quite frankly, it demonstrates an astounding lack of self-awareness when it comes from a Keynesian who has turned being wrong into a career option. But in this rare case, I might actually let his painfully ironic comments slide without condemnation.

The essential economic problem we confront today is that our dominant Keynesian intellectuals have abandoned reality. They do not grasp what they have wrought with the mountainous loads of debt and malinvestment that are overwhelming us. Much of this burden must be liquidated before genuine demand and growth can be restored, which will require radical reform if we are to evoke a genuine cure. To try and solve today’s debt created crisis with more debt (as the Keynesians are presently doing) can only bring on a bigger bust the next time around, which will require still larger “debt injections” to...

It is now five years since the crash of 2008. Today's media and much of our academic crowd, of course, believe that the crisis has been handled, and that we can settle back to "business as usual." But such pundits are viewing only the trees, not the forest. They see correct Federal Reserve policy and legitimate fiscal policy on the part of the Federal Government. But this view comes from a false concept of economics and from a major failing of humans – their use of "euphemism" to flee from reality. For example, almost all of today's scholars and pundits...

When academia practices real diversity, one wonders how long it can continue. It usually doesn’t, unfortunately. Right now there is a crack in the Ivory Curtain in the person of Manuel Suarez-Mier, economist in residence at the School of International Service at American University. To call him politically incorrect would be an understatement. We mean that as a compliment. “I contend that any organization that has to use the word democratic as an adjective is anything but,” Suarez Mier said at a conference in Chicago co-sponsored by the Atlas Network and the Illinois Policy Institute. “Think about it: The Democratic...

<p>It’s sometimes difficult to make fun of Keynesian economics. But this isn’t because Keynesian theory is airtight.</p> <p>It’s easy, after all, to mock a school of thought that is predicated on the notion that you can make yourself richer by taking money from your right pocket and putting it in your left pocket.</p>

Usually when a group gets “mission creep,” it’s because they’ve accomplished their original mission. Yet and still, English professors at the Modern Language Association (MLA) think they can “solve” America’s financial crisis even while illiteracy is rampant in the United States. “How many errors in the financial crisis could be solved with freshman comp logic?” Matthew E. A. Seybold asked a crowd at a panel at this year’s MLA convention in Chicago. Seybold teaches at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Business and economics courses are “mired in Marx and not Marx,” Seybold averred. Then Seybold went on to quote...

Economist Andy Xie has an interesting article in CaixinOnline that contains his views on 2014. I agree with nearly all his viewpoints but one. Please consider Breaking Out Is Hard by Andie Xie. The global economy is unlikely to accelerate in 2014. The hope that the U.S. economy is reaching escape velocity won't pan out. Abenomics is likely to fizzle out in 2014. Emerging economies will likely remain in low gear. The chances are that the global economy, weighted by nominal GDP at current exchange rates, will grow at 2 percent Globalization, turbo-powered by information technology, has cut short the...

After studying and teaching Keynesian economics for 30 years, I conclude that the “sophisticated” Keynes­ians really do believe in magic and fairy dust. Lots of fairy dust. It may seem odd that this Aus­trian economist refers to fairies, but I got the term from Paul Krugman. According to Krugman, too many people place false hopes in what he calls the “Confidence Fairy,” a creature created as a retort to economist Robert Higgs’s concept of “regime uncertainty.” Higgs coined that expression in a 1997 paper on the Great Depression in which he claimed that uncertainty caused by the policies of Franklin...

How do you solve a problem if you refuse to admit you have one — or if you delude yourself into thinking it's not as bad as it actually is? The answer: You don't. You might minimize symptoms and make some progress. But unless you address the root cause, you will not find a real long-term solution. Unfortunately, far too many politicians in Washington refuse to acknowledge — and as a result, never accurately describe — the challenges currently facing America. I'm not sure why so many choose to keep their heads in the sand, but their state of denial...

While all eleven minutes of Obama’s apocalyptic “government shutdown” speech is well within the definition of “disingenuous”, there was one mundane comment that demands attention. The comment was more or less a throwaway line, aimed at illustrating the gravity of a government shutdown. Startling, the President uttered a fact during his 11 minutes of blaming Republicans. The Federal Government is, in fact, the largest employer in America. “The federal government is America's largest employer” Obama reminded the press as he launched into a childish explanation of Keynesian economics. And now, some of those “non-essential” employees might be getting furloughed. (Inexplicably,...

The nomination of Janet Yellen to become head of the Federal Reserve System has set off a flurry of media stories. Since she will be the first woman to occupy that position, we can only hope that this will not mean that any criticism of what she does will be attributed to sex bias or to a "war on women." The Federal Reserve has become such a major player in the American economy that it needs far more scrutiny and criticism than it has received, regardless of who heads it. Ms. Yellen, a former professor of economics at Berkeley, has...

Keynesians continue to claim the recent recession and weak recovery have as their root cause a shortage of demand. If only the government would spend more money in the short run to augment demand from the private sector, we could fully recover. At that point, miraculously, the economy begins to generate sufficient demand on its own to replace the temporary government stimulus spending and the government can go back to business as usual. The problem with this scenario is that it misunderstands the role of demand in an economy and it also equates continuing, private sector demand with temporary government...

.... I was duly attacked for my remarks and offered an immediate and unqualified apology. But this did not suffice for some critics, who insisted that I was guilty not just of stupidity but also of homophobia. I have no doubt that at least some students were influenced by these allegations. Nobody would want to study with a bigot. I therefore owe it to students—former and prospective—to make it unambiguously clear that I am no such thing.....