[hga]

All too often it seems to maximizing egos ... until the firm's Long Night begins....

Going from first principles, the application of "macroeconomics based on aggregate demand" to the microeconomics of specific firms is always going to be iffy.

Zillions of factors, e.g. local demand, regulatory regimes, uncertainty of about the latter and tax regimes, current and future ... heck, I gather the Austrians don't entirely dismiss Keynes's animal spirits concept, they just have some explanations for it, which get harder to apply the more you move away from purely financial considerations.

E.g. if Main Street, these small and medium size businesses, conclude they've been declared Enemies of the People, the animal spirits of the people in them are going to be affected. Not to Godwinize this discussion, but I gather those of the school who survived did so by getting the hell out of Dodge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ritter_von_Strigl#Late...) and that also critically disrupted the school. You can imagine how scholars felt when they discovered von Mises' archives in Moscow after the Cold War....