(E)ven wise and necessary Reform may, in some respects, impede and complicate Recovery. For it will upset the confidence of the business world and weaken their existing motives to action, before you have had time to put other motives in their place.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Advice from Lord Keynes to the President
I have often complained that, regardless of the merits of health-care reform, environmental regulations, and the myriad of "reforms" put in place by the Obama administration, doing so while the economy is recovering from a massive recession is simply a bad idea. It turns out that I'm more of a Keynesian than I thought and that the President isn't enough of one. Greg Mankiw has a post describing a letter by John Maynard Keynes to FDR in 1933. Here is the key quote: