Reading this convinces, because of the way it is written. Students, take a look, and learn something about the power and persuasiveness of dead economists’ ideas.

Dear Mr President,

You have made yourself the trustee for those in every country who seek to mend the evils of our condition by reasoned experiment within the framework of the existing social system. If you fail, rational change will be gravely prejudiced throughout the world, leaving orthodoxy and revolution to fight it out. But if you succeed, new and bolder methods will be tried everywhere, and we may date the first chapter of a new economic era from your accession to office. This is a sufficient reason why I should venture to lay my reflections before you, though under the disadvantages of distance and partial knowledge.

John Maynard Keynes: Economic advice for America’s president | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk