A perigrination in the catacombs

In the library of the Treasury, there is an ancient copy of one of Keynes' pamphlets, and it has been scrawled over by Treasury officials with the words 'bankruptcy' and 'insanity'.

Keynes was challenging the Treasury idea, which seems to have been in their DNA since time immemorial, that the way out of recession is to get people to save not spend. The money has to be in the banks, ready to lend.

Keynes' view was that, in the end, this kind of puritanical retrenchment led to death – "a peregri...