John Maynard Keynes, from 1937:
"I fully agree with the important point he [Mr. Robertson] makes (pp. 180-183) that the increased demand for money resulting from an increase in activity has a backwash which tends to raise the rate of interest; and this is, indeed, a significant element in my theory of why booms carry within them the seeds of their own destruction."
For my purposes, the sentence has three parts
- I fully agree ... that
- [interaction of economic forces described]
- the part after the semicolon.
The first part matters because the point Robertson makes is important, because Keynes fully agrees with it, and because we can still read the original (at pp. 180-183) if we are willing to pay the access fee. None of that matters, though, unless one holds Keynes in high esteem.
The last part matters because an economic boom carrying the seeds of its own destruction would explain why business cycles exist. To me, given that studying the economy is my hobby, the last part is what makes the sentence important and me willing to dwell on it.
The middle part matters. This is where the interaction of economic forces is described. Nothing is more important, if one's goal is to understand the economy.
For me as a blogger, though, the important thing is to understand what makes the sentence so good. I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to talk about the economy in a way that makes sense to people and makes them want to read what I write. I'm not very good at that. That's why I'm looking at the sentence from Keynes.
When I first read the sentence, I wrote:
In other words, as a boom continues, the increasing cost of interest subtracts increasingly from profits, from aggregate demand, and from economic growth, until the downward pressure is enough to turn boom into recession.
I'm satisfied with that as a technically correct interpretation of the meat of Keynes's sentence, at least as I interpret it. I'm okay with that.
But it lacks the lightness of "the increased demand for money resulting from an increase in activity has a backwash which tends to raise the rate of interest". Rather than light, mine is dreary. I think this must affect people's willingness to read me.
So I am looking at the Keynes sentence and looking for what makes it light and readable.
He doesn't list things in chronological sequence, the way I did and do. Keynes starts with "the increased demand for money" which is a result. But I think the phrase "the increased demand for money" is an attention-getter, even among people who are not interested in the economy. So putting that first is a good idea.
Also, the out-of-sequence technique seems to make the chain of causality shorter and easier to grasp. My paraphrase, above, lists one cause, three intermediate results, and the final, important part. That's a long chain to hold in the mind. Too long to be comfortable.
As Keynes has it, the attention-getting "demand for money" has one cause and one result. That's simple and easy to grasp. And the result isn't even a "result". It is a "backwash". A repercussion. His meaning is clear, and his wording is easy to take.
New rule: Make the wording easy to take.
