But the political leadership, and eventually the younger economists who started at the Ministry, had other plans.5 The economy was to be managed. Keynes’ idea that the budget should be used actively to manage demand and output over an economic cycle was to them an obvious truth. In a Kuhnian sense, the older civil servants had to go for the new thinking to gain ground. The legal experts at the Ministry had to give way to the young economists. The new regulatory regime was enthusiastically implemented after the war, and crowned with success. The contrast between the blight of the interwar years and the postwar boom was stunning. The ambition was not only to keep unemployment low. Which industry sectors should be allowed to invest? What type of dwellings should we build? Who should be able to buy a car and have a telephone installed? In the 1950s and 1960s, these were questions in respect of which the central government had firm views. Keynes, regulation and planning were predominant truths in the former government building for several decades. Yet neither did these truths remain eternal. In the 1970s, deficits ballooned when the government used countercyclical policies to “build a bridge” over the global downturn. But it was a bridge to nowhere. Inflation took off and government finances were strained to breaking point. The policy of micro-managing the economy had gone too far. Wage and price controls at the end of the 1970s, the last gasp of the postwar paradigm, did little to help.
Here is a graph that shows the margin of difference in employment performance:  According to Bureau of Labor Statistics’ payroll employment data, Texas has created 1,100,600 jobs since November 2007; the rest of America is still 349,600 jobs shy of the prior employment peak. Texas has been the crucible of job creation in America. More than oil and gas; jobs well-distributed It is a common perception that the jobs that have been created here are primarily in the burgeoning energy sector. It is true that Texas is an energy powerhouse: We produce more than 3 million barrels of oil and 21 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. To put this in perspective, Texas produces more oil than Kuwait or Venezuela or, if you’d like, more oil than the amount the U.S. imports from the Middle East. With regard to natural gas, Texas produces more than all 28 countries of the European Union combined. Of course, the energy sector is a significant driver for the Texas economy. Last year, the state saw an increase of 16,100 jobs related to oil and gas extraction and associated support services. We are grateful for every one of them. Yet there are seven other sectors of the Texas economy that produced more jobs than the energy sector last year.