Harvard Professor apologizes for Keynes comments [View all]

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By MAE ANDERSON

NEW YORK (AP) - Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor and author, apologized on Saturday for saying economist John Maynard Keynes was less invested in the future because he was gay and had no children.

Ferguson said his remarks at an earlier conference were "as stupid as they were insensitive."

During a question-and-answer session after a prepared speech at the Altegris Strategic Investment conference in Carlsbad, Calif. on Thursday, Ferguson was asked to comment about Keynes, an influential 20thcentury British economist who advocated government spending as a way to make up for lagging demand in a down economy.

Ferguson suggested that Keynes philosophy was shaped by his homosexuality. Keynes, therefore, had no children so he wasn't as invested in future generations as others might be, Ferguson said.

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Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130504/DA62MD081.html

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In this Friday, Sept. 3, 2010 photo, Harvard history professor and author Niall Ferguson attends the "Intelligence on the World, Europe, and Italy" economic forum, at Villa d'Este, in Cernobbio, on Como Lake, Italy. Ferguson is apologizing for saying economist John Maynard Keynes didn't care about the future because he was gay and had no children. Ferguson made the remarks on Thursday, May 2, 2013, during a question-and-answer session after a prepared speech at the Altegris Strategic Investment conference in Carlsbad, Calif. Asked to comment about Keynes, he suggested that the British economist's philosophy was shaped by being homosexual and therefore childless. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)