> Thus any attempt to bring it back to rationality will look as irrational as the system that is being fixed. The business cycle isn't irrational. It's a ratio

> Thus any attempt to bring it back to rationality will look as irrational as the system that is being fixed. The business cycle isn't irrational. It's a rational outgrowth of the basic fact that there is a lag between investment and the realized gains (or losses) from that investment. The only thing needed to deal with this problem is a reliable and relatively quick system for liquidating debt. > Anyone who thinks that Keynes wasn't aware of the temporary nature of deficit spending I've heard this argument before and it still doesn't save him. If a theory includes a provision that is never actually recommended in practice, it's not really part of the theory. Even if conceded this point (that deficit spending was temporary and would be replaced by austerity at-some-unnamed-point-in-the-future-when-everything-was-amazing), his theory on deficit spending is still wrong, because it assumes that the malinvestment (rational or irrational) that lead to the business cycle will somehow be improved by what will likely be *even more malinvestment* in the form of deficit spending.