Seven Red

Interesting way to phrase things from today’s New York Times article titled What Would Keynes Have Done? To wit:

Keynesian economists often dismiss these long-run concerns when the economy has short-run problems. “In the long run we are all dead,” Keynes famously quipped.

The longer-term problem we now face, however, may be more serious than any that Keynes ever envisioned. Passing a larger national debt to the next generation may look attractive to those without children. (Keynes himself was childless.) But the rest of us cannot feel much comfort knowing that, in the long run, when we are dead, our children and grandchildren will be dealing with our fiscal legacy.

Get it? Keynes was – ahem – childless. Wink wink. Given the current environment, that’s a fairly uncomfortable set of assumptions there for those in on the “joke.” I didn’t realize the Times went in for this kind of nonsense. Or maybe the terribly clever N. Gregory Mankiw just slipped one by the editor.

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