Lærer vi ikke af historien?

I 1933 skriver John M. Keynes i åbent brev til præsident Franklin D. Roosevelt ("With great respect, your obedient servant") om den dobbelte udfordring i på kort sigt at vende økonomien fra nedtur til vækst og beskæftigelse, og at gennemføre tiltrængte socialpolitiske og erhvervspolitiske reformer:

You are engaged on a double task, Recovery and Reform;--recovery from the slump and the passage of those business and social reforms which are long overdue. For the first, speed and quick results are essential. The second may be urgent too; but haste will be injurious, and wisdom of long-range purpose is more necessary than immediate achievement. It will be through  raising high the prestige of your administration by success in short-range Recovery, that you will have the driving force to accomplish long-range Reform. On the other hand, even wise and necessary Reform may, in some respects, impede and complicate Recovery. For it will upset the confidence of the business world and weaken their existing motives to action, before you have had time to put other motives in their place. It may over-task your bureaucratic machine, which the traditional individualism of the United States and the old "spoils system" have left none too strong. And it will confuse the thought and aim of yourself and your administration by giving you too much to think about all at once.

Lærer vi det aldrg?

John Maynard Keynes, May 23, 1939:

It is not an exaggeration to say that the end of abnormal unemployment is in sight. And it isn't only the unemployed who will feel the difference. A great number besides will be taking home better money each week.
The Grand Experiment has begun. If it works -- if expenditure on armament really does cure unemployment -- I predict we shall never go back all the way to the old state of affairs. Good may come out of evil. We may learn a trick or two which shall be useful when the day of peace comes.
If we can cure unemployment for the wasted purpose of armaments, we can cure it for the productive purposes of peace.

Paul Krugman in "The Return of Depression Economics" (2012):

...faced with an economic crisis, countries were urged to raise interest rates, slash spending and increase taxes.
Why, sixty years after Keynes, would anybody think that that was a good idea to break so profoundly with the Keynesian compact?
The answer lay in the preceived need to win market confidence at all cost.

Tað er helt uforståeligt, at vi skal gentage de samme fejl igen.

Samfelagsbúskapur er ikki privatbúskapur

-- og almenna fíggjarlógin er ikki eitt vanligt húsarhaldsbudgett.

Robert Shiller skrivar í grein í The New York Times:

one of the most dangerous analogies in political economy: “families have to tighten their belts in tough times, so the government should too.”

Jared Bernstein leggur aftrat á sínum bloggi:

“Dangerous” not just because it’s so very wrong—the opposite is true—but because it sounds so right.

Sum eg havi verið inni á so ofta, skal man vera sera ansin at brúka metaforar í kjaki, tí fólk sum ikki skilja upprunaliga problemstillingin, skilja sjáldan heldur, at metaforurin gevur góða meining.