Joe Nocera writes about Thursday’s New York Revie/PEN event on the economy, but fails to mention what I found the most depressing aspect of the whole thing: further confirmation that we’re living in a Dark Age of macroeconomics, in which hard-won knowledge has simply been forgotten.

What’s the evidence? Niall Ferguson “explaining” that fiscal expansion will actually be contractionary, because it will drive up interest rates. At least that’s what I think he said; there were so many flourishes that it’s hard to tell. But in any case, this is really sad: John Hicks knew far more about this in 1937 than people who think they’re sophisticates know now....