Robert skidelsky keynes biography of barack biden

The work discusses the economic theories and philosophy of John Maynard Keynes , and argues about their relevance to the world following the Financial crisis of — In contrast to the 30 years he needed to write his prize-winning biography on Keynes, the author was able to write this page book in only three months. The book is divided into a preface, an introduction and three main parts which include a total of eight chapters.

The preface introduces Skidelsky's broad themes.

Robert skidelsky keynes biography of barack biden: Robert Skidelsky proposes two

In addition to the relevance of Keynes's economics due to the crisis, the author talks about the newly energised questioning concerning wider issues such as the role of morality in 21st-century life and on how Keynes's philosophy and ethics might offer an answer. The introduction maps out the ground the book will cover - the rise of Keynesianism from the late s; its fall in the s; the subsequent rise of free-market-friendly economics, which Skidelsky considers suffers from a regressive over-reliance on maths; the discrediting of this form of economics by the late s crises and the new relevance of Keynes.

Chapter 1 includes a thumbnail sketch of the unfolding events that comprise the — crises, a brief discussion of the government response and an outline of the various causes, along with a summary of how they have been covered in the media. The crises are described as the deflation of the asset bubble once confidence was undermined in key underlying factors: American house prices and the creditworthiness of sub-prime mortgages.

Following on from this was the liquidity crunch in the world of finance, with the knock-on effect on the real economy. Lord Skidelsky divides his discussion of the response into two sections, covering the bail-outs and the stimulus packages. He finishes by asserting that all these actors are influenced by economic theories and that it is recent trends in economics that are the real cause of the crises.