The Economic Consequences of the Peace

I have not read the book I mention in today's title, but I would like to. I know it was written and published by John Maynard Keynes in 1919 and it came out on the cusp of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles formally ending World War I -- and depending who you talk to, setting the stage for World War II. I know Keynes (pronounced CAINS, by the way) worked for the British Treasury at the time and both before and after this was a leading professor at Cambridge University. I know Keynesian economics has both its adherents and its defamers -- that sounds so much better than "critics" because a critic can just as easily be offering you helpful advice to improve a product or service, in the manner of a constructive critic. But so few these days want to be.


Constructive, I mean. Critics, we can find a slew of without even looking some days.


I did well enough in economics in high (don't remember my final grade offhand) but I narrowly Narrowly NARROWLY avoided failing both courses -- Microeconomics and Macroeconomics -- when I was at Stetson University in the early 90s. And even finishing Roger Leroy Miller, Gary M. Walton, and Robert L. Sexton's 1985 work Economic Issues and the American Past (ISBN 0060445092) doesn't make me much smarter in understanding money. Of course, a standard economist will tell you economics isn't just about money it's about value and how we perceive it, how a society uses it, and how too much or too little will make it morph over time. So is Goldilocks from Goldilocks and The Three Bears a budding economist for choosing what's just right?


Meh, in Keynes' own words, in the long run we're all dead.


But I digress. "Our Handsome Hero", the Once Upon A Time episode this past Sunday, brought back Gaston. If you remember Beauty and the Beast, Gaston's the blustering hunter who wanted to marry Belle and he didn't, he got killed by the Beast -- Rumplestiltskin in OUAT -- in both the animated film and in the "past" of the show by being turned into a rose in the latter. Still in the Underworld, Rumple and Belle are among the main characters readying for this grand confrontation with Hades and (I still don't get this; I mean, you got Hook whom you went there for; it might be a better idea to get out of Dodge) enabling as many people there to "move on" as they can and weakening the lord of the Underworld that way. By giving them hope, in a land of hopelessness.


Not to tick off Jennifer Morrison (Emma Swan) whom I hope had a Happy Birthday yesterday!


So not every episode hits it out of the ballpark! Nor does every book I read or every post I write come out quite like I read or reread or write and rewrite them. Some are disappointments, like my kids found their spring pictures. Jeffrey said his made him look "creepy" while Sarah said ... I don't remember what Sarah said about hers, but she didn't like hers either. As we put the latest pictures in frames at my in-laws' house, I can appreciate NOT wanting something up you don't like about you. They took them back to school today and last night Jeffrey finished what he says is the first [multi-] chapter book he's finished reading (The Last Kids On Earth) while Sarah got her reading done with far less fuss. Maybe I wasn't so thrilled reading at home in third grade either, I don't recall.  


But who can say how much is endurable, or in what direction men will seek at last to escape from their misfortunes?


David