I sent the following email to Kessler about his column.
Your column today should be read by every American, especially the financial illiterates in DC and state capitals. It is one of the most important essays I have read in a newspaper in my lifetime. Which is now in the middle of my eighth decade. This is not an overstatement. The Journal has published insightful essays over the years, but your column totally demolishes the Keynesian paradigm once and for all and should have an impact on policymakers. However, I doubt it. They all worship at the altar of the real “trickle down economics”–spend, tax, print money and regulate. I will link your column on my blog.
Your point that “saving and investment must precede consumption” was articulated by Murray Rothbard on p. 22 of his 1962 essay, “The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar,” “production – “purchase” of money – – “sale” of money.” I first read his essay in 1974 when I purchased his books and those of others of the Austrian school at the Foundation for Economic Education. (https://cdn.mises.org/Case%
20for%20a%20100%20Percent% 20Gold%20Dollar_2.pdf) I began each of my finance classes for 35 years (1985-2020) with this proposition that as a college professor I could consume goods and services because I provided a service–teaching finance. Production indeed precedes consumption. I point this out in my Fed book to highlight why printing money does not create wealth, and leads to numerous economic and financial distortions.
Keep it up. We will eventually have a free market economy. The great unknown is when will policymakers admit their mistakes.
Source: Opinion | Congress Can’t Enact a Chicken