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Article: Stimulating ourselves to death.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- July 1, 2009
- Author:
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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Veronique de Rugy's "Stimulating Ourselves to Death" (April) successfully attacks the conventional explanation of the Depression itself and its cure. When I first learned economics, in the early 1930s at the University of Chicago, I learned a different explanation, mainly associated with economist Henry Simons, that I found persuasive and continue to believe.
This approach begins by recognizing that our banks are rather dangerous institutions. They lend out most of the money deposited with them. Thus they have a large debt in the form of demand deposits. Their assets are mainly investments in bonds, stocks, and mortgages. They keep ...