John Maynard Keynes, the Depression-era economist who once wrote for The Banker, but whose ideas fell out of favour during the 'markets era' of the past three decades, is very much back in vogue. His ideas and quotations are being used to support the case for continuing deficit spending, underwritten by the threat that failure to do so will presage a return to the economic hardships of the 1930s.
It is debatable, however, as to whether Keynes - if he could speak for himself - would support this simplistic transfer of his ideas across an 80-year time span without due recognition of the vast changes in the global economy since then.
