John Maynard Keynes died 70 years ago. We ignore his wisdom at our peril | Justin Talbot Zorn and Merle Lefkoff

The economist warned against the potentially disastrous weaknesses of our global financial system. It's not too late to pay him heed now

When John Maynard Keynes died, 70 years ago on Thursday, he was a man with serious unfinished business. While he achieved much in his lifetime, he lost out to the American delegation at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. Against his objections, the US dollar was made the global currency, and Keynes' foresighted idea for a new institution to more equitably balance the interests of creditor and debtor countries was rejected.

What we got instead was the IMF, structural adjustment policies and more than half a century of largely unnecessary pain and suffering for the world's poorest countries.

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