Crazy economists and their debates

Mostly about Keynes.
Here is the real story.  Consumer generally make decisions about important purchases as a trade between doing it or not doing it. That trading decision looks like this:

Budget - (Price/value - value/price) = 0

That is a quadratic.  Their choice is always to delay the purchase until the root of that equation is symmetrical and real. They do not make the purchase if the value or price is dependent upon some future date. They eschew time delay, it does not help them. It is always about swapping the queue order until they have a clear choice at the head of the queue.

Some large firms can consider a decision over a three queue, deciding to solve a cubic. The will continue swapping the top three  of the queue until they get real roots, eschewing time delay.

Anything with a complex root is immediately recognized as an uncertainty at some future date, a strict no no. How do they know? The value to them is always relative to their current situation.  They will continue to adjust the queue of choices based on their current situation, often making the intended situation match an important purchase, so they can get a real solution.

The net result is their variations are always square symmetrical, for a two choice;   or cubic, real  and asymmetrical for a three choice. The effect is to minimize redundant decisions, like having to deal with something twice because the root was complex during the decision.

Since 1980 DC generally counts once per cycle, so within that cycle one sees six possible combinations of GDP change.