Keynes's Way to Wealth

by John F. Wasik

This is the first book about John Maynard Keynes that I’ve ever read. Of course I’ve heard lots about Keynes and his economic theories, so I was intrigued at the idea of utilizing his ideas to gain wealth, but that is where this book falls short. It attempts to show the man and his ideas in light of modern investment theory, but I felt that overall, it is caught in between a biography and a “how to” manual, and ultimately doesn’t tell us much about Keynes or how to become wealthy.

Biographically, this book provides only a bare sketch of the type of man Keynes was and his personal history. It tries to angle all this into an overview of how it led Mr. Keynes to develop his investment strategies (not his economic theories), but the conclusions drawn and supporting facts are tenuous at best. There are detailed sections of stocks that he bought, many (naturally) of companies that no longer exist or have long since been bought out or merged into other firms. Because (let’s face it) it would have been irrelevant information anyway, dates, prices and quantities of stocks purchased and sold, and individual profit and loss figures, are largely absent. This means that the reader is given a glimpse into Keynes’ investment strategies without regard to anything that might be made use of. Where the book excels is in providing a number of sidebars that supply definitions of investment terms and explanations of some of the situations that Keynes had to deal with, and these are interesting and sometimes, valuable. They won’t be particularly useful for advanced investors, but they will make this book much more approachable for beginners.

In the end, I think the reader must keep in mind that Mr. Keynes made money investing during historic depressions and devastating wars, so not only does that merit study, the ideas behind such investment strategies can probably still be applied today. Mr. Masik has made a good start looking into Keynes’s investment strategy, but in the end, I feel there is more meat on the bone than this book offers, which is why I rank it just above average at three and a half dollar signs.