“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

– John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)

Practical Objectives

Is President Donald J. Trump a practical man? Is he a madman?

Does he hear voices in the air?

We’ll leave the answers to these questions to you. Certainly, Trump’s the slave of destructive decisions from the past. Many of these decisions were guided by dead economists.

For example, decisions made a century ago, such as the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and FDR’s seizure of the private gold holdings of American citizens in 1933, are forcing Trump’s plans. Today, for fun and for free, we seek to better understand the great calamity he’s dealing with.

To begin, Trump’s tariff policies are intended to reroute the origins of production and the flows of global trade. Specifically, he wants to relocate the production of imported goods from foreign factories to domestic factories. The purpose is to revitalize American manufacturing and create new blue-collar jobs. Continue reading →