The Austrians vs. the Keynesians. Is this the same as the Fresh Water School vs. the Salt Water School, that my boyfriend mutters about as the market gyrates.
No.
The Fresh Water and Salt Water Schools are both variations of the Keynesian School of Economics.
The Fresh Water bunch (led by Chicago and Carnage Mellon) are more conservative and believe the answer to prosperity lies in government tinkering of monetary policies.
The Salt Water bunch (led by MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, and Cal-Berkley) are more liberal and argue for fiscal intervention by the government. Obama's pork package and Bernanke's Quantitative Easing disasters are classic Salt Water solutions.
As pointed out by the author of this article, the Austrian School is almost the complete antithesis of the Keynesian School. The Austrian School, although still considered heterodox, is rapidly gaining supporters if for no other reason than its accurate predictions concerning our current economic disaster. The Keynesian School will probably remain orthodox given the liberal tendencies of academic elites, but is nevertheless gaining a reputation of failure and thus rapidly losing its credibility.