Short memories...

"Laffer professes no recollection of this napkin"

Keynes wrote a book called A Treatise on Money. I wanted to look up something in it. I searched Google Books, found a book by that title, and started reading.

I know: I depend heavily on Google. But anyway...

The book struck me a little odd. Unexpected. I couldn't find what I was looking for. And I found something I was not looking for:

Impose a tax of a very onerous amount, and instead of increasing the revenue you may kill the revenue altogether; whilst, on the other hand, the progressive diminution of a tax, by increasing the demand, may also increase the revenue obtainable.

First of all, that's not Keynes. There are some writers -- Keynes, Tocqueville, Adam Smith -- whose work is so beautiful as to be almost immediately recognizable. And then there are the rest of us.

Second: Wow, this is Laffer-Curve stuff. Who did write it?

The book is "A Treatise on Money and essays on monetary problems," by J. Shield Nicholson, from 1901.

1901.