John Maynard Keynes Quotes
The considerations upon which expectations of prospective yields are based are partly existing facts which we can assume to be known more or less for certain, and partly future events which can only be forecasted with more or less confidence.
Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Macmillan, 1936, p. 147.
Despite this reality, most politicians, if they have the resources and high enough position, surround themselves with experts to advise them and then listen to them to take positions in campaigns or advise them on policy making if they are in office.
He is absolutely right, but unfortunately made this statement several years after he served as the Fed Chairman. He never made a statement like this when he and his colleagues made their policies based on their economic forecasting. Central bankers have generally felt that one of their jobs was to give the people confidence in the nation’s banking system and economy and the admission that much policy making was based on “coin toss” forecasting.
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, CB, FBA (5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles. One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, he produced writings that are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots. His ideas, reformulated as New Keynesianism, are fundamental to mainstream macroeconomics.
