Harvard's Niall Ferguson Slams Famed Economist John Maynard Keynes: 'A Homosexual Married to a Ballerina'

Oh boy, this is too juicy!

At Financial Advisor Magazine, "Harvard Professor Trashes Keynes For Homosexuality":

Harvard Professor and author Niall Ferguson says John Maynard Keynes' economic philosophy was flawed and he didn't care about future generations because he was gay and didn't have children.

Speaking at the Tenth Annual Altegris Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., in front of a group of more than 500 investors, Ferguson responded to a question about Keynes' famous philosophy of self-interest versus the economic philosophy of Edmund Burke, who believed there was a social contract among the living, as well as the dead. Ferguson asked the audience how many children Keynes had. He explained that Keynes had none because he was a homosexual and was married to a ballerina, with whom he likely talked of "poetry" rather than procreated. The audience went quiet at the remark. Some attendees later said they found the remarks offensive.

It gets worse.

Ferguson, who is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, says it's only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an "effete" member of society. Apparently, in Ferguson's world, if you are gay or childless, you cannot care about future generations nor society.

This takes gay-bashing to new heights. It even perversely pins the full weight of the financial crisis on the gay community and the barren.

Not only is this intellectually void, it's mad. And anyone with a moral conscience should be outraged. It is one thing to take issue with a society fueled by self interest and one fueled by a larger ethic. But it's entirely vulgar to make this argument about sexual preference -- and to do so glibly.

Okay, yes.

I'll feign my outrage now. How about this?

"Oh that is horrible, HORRIBLE!

That Professor Ferguson is a nasty brute. And so unfair to the homosexuals and the barren. It's an abomination. Economic conservatives are just like, well, HITLER!

Boycott Harvard until it fires that horrible, HORRIBLE man. Boycott I say! And disinvest!

How could anyone possible say such a thing, and so glibly, yes! That makes it extra mean. That he said it glibly is just HORRIBLE."

HAT TIP: Tufts Professor Daniel Drezner, who apparently thinks Ferguson is just horrible!

Also, here's the conference program and roster. Maybe a video will surface and we'll get some bonus lulz.

UPDATE: The story's building attention at Memeorandum. Ferguson is horrible, HORRIBLE! Extreme outrage all over the place. The speech ayatollahs are out in force! See especially Andrew Gelman at the Monkey Cage and Henry Blodget at Business Insider.