Just a week ago I took it off the bookshelf to read parts of chapter 23, “Notes on Mercantilism, the Usury Laws, Stamped Money and Theories of Under-Consumption.” Today that chapter would be headed “Protectionism, the Zero Lower Bound, and Secular Stagnation,” with the importance of usury laws having diminished since 1936.
There is an old joke about our field – not the one about the one-handed economist, nor the one about “assume you have a can opener,” nor the one that ends, “If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here.” Rather it’s the one about the Ph.D. economist who returns to his university for his class’s 50th reunion.