Epstein Secrets

s are selected for successful reproduction. | will try to show that the classical school treated this as axiomatic from Petty through Smith, Malthus, Ricardo and Mill. Malthus was only the most obvious case. It lapsed from attention when a brilliant new insight called marginalism preferred to do without e

vailable for business to borrow and invest. But business lacked the “animal spirits” to take such a risk ina slump. We saw the same story after 2008. Keynes’ proposal was for government to do the borrowing and investing instead. That’s part of the “fiscal policy” I described in Chapter 1. Here we tend to

saving is invested, as I use the word, but finds different returns. Saving under the mattress is investment at zero return, and drops output just as Keynes said. Investment at the current average return keeps output unchanged. That’s what Keynes meant. But investment at lower returns lowers output, and c

es. They cannot gain by consumption restraint for the two excellent reasons that there is no consumption to spare and no niche space if there were. Ricardo, Malthus and West all warned against rote replication in economies already developed. We must create means to make more from less. I suspect that we

d their market value in return, as if on the books of a firm. Chapter 6: Parallels with the Firm 2/4/16 21 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011055 Marshall’s pupil Keynes was thoroughly a marginalist, as are economists in general today and as am I. One of the features of his General Theory of 1936 was a kind of double-

t the human capital of children. But Farr deserves credit for pointing out that human capital in general capitalizes pay less invested consumption. Keynes’ teacher Alfred Marshall agreed with Farr in 1990’. As I read this passage, Marshall interpreted maintenance consumption as investment. So did B. F.

and, in fact to my embarrassment, it became clear that the models were modelling the economics of the classical economists; the economics of Smith, Ricardo, Marx, von Neumann (unmodified) and Sraffa. With hindsight this turned out to be a consequence of the second of the two original models I had propo

duced from retained earnings within companies. For many economists, somewhat oddly, this will be seen as a serious flaw. Since at least the time of Keynes, investment and saving have been at the heart of macroeconomic modelling, and this is true of neo-classical and other heterodox modelling, not just

e value. The physiocrats were also correct in their belief that land can provide value, in its role in capturing the sun's rays. Where Smith, Marx, Ricardo, Sraffa etc were correct was in their belief that value is an inherent quantity, embodied in the goods and services in the economy. However, as was

the players know that it is the Old Maid which is circulating, or that when the music stops some of the players will find themselves unseated." 3M Keynes [Keynes 1936] The following is a brief review of current research and emerging ideas within the field of liquidity. This section is something of a