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Keynes put asset prices at the centre of employment determination in his 1936 General Theory.

Keynes had no sure cure for slumps
The recent collapse of speculation on houses is a non-monetary phenomenon
Edmund Phelps, Financial Times, November 4 2008

Keynes put asset prices at the centre of employment determination in his 1936 General Theory. If a change in sentiment causes steep declines in valuations of business assets (along with share prices and house prices), business investing is cut back and employment contracts – unemployment rises – mostly in capital goods industries.

Unfortunately nothing went well after that.
Keynes made a huge mistake in not distinguishing between a drop in asset prices springing from monetary causes – an exogenous, or autonomous, increase in the demand for money – and one springing from causes having nothing to do with supply and demand for money – say, diminished expectations about future returns on business assets or houses.

The recent collapse of speculation on houses, however, is a non-monetary phenomenon:
there has to be a drop of the money price of (a basket of) houses relative to the money price of (a basket of) consumer goods.

Keynes always felt that consumer demand too drives employment. An increase in demand encourages companies to raise production and hire more workers – at first.

But in an open economy with its own currency, the stimulus would mostly go abroad. In the global economy, increased consumer demand would ultimately do little more than raise interest rates, thus setting off declines in real asset prices, investment and real wages.

Full text

Comment by Rolf Englund:
Please note that Phelps says nothing, repeat nothing, about what we should do to cure slumps.
And Phelps have got the "Nobel prize" in Economics.