home John Maynard Keynes was best known for advocating that the government could and should create prosperity by fiscal stimulus. Fiscal stimulus is when the government increases spending and increases borrowing. Fiscal stimulus means borrow money and spend it. John Maynard Keynes also said the gold standard was a barbaric relic. These two ideas are contradictory. The boom and bust economic cycle is caused by changes in the delay between when people get money and when people spend money. see the cause of the boom and bust economic cycle. home