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Debunking Economics – the podcast — Education
Debunking Economics – the podcast

Economist Steve Keen talks to Phil Dobbie about the failings of the neoclassical economics and how it reflects on society.

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Copyright: © Copyright 2016 . All rights reserved.

Latest Episodes:

Irving Fisher and Debt Deflation Dec 07, 2022

Show notes

Irving Fisher was an American economist whose book The Purchasing Power of Money looked at the relationship between money supply and price levels. In fact, to many he is seen as the father of monetarism, but on this week’s podcast Steve Keen explains how Fisher’s struggles with debt led him to develop his thinking on debt deflation as the cause of major economic downturns. He’s the first of a series of economists who have influenced Steve’s thinking, that we’ll be looking at over the next five weeks or so.

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The Debt Myth Nov 30, 2022

Show notes

How widespread is the idea that one person's debt is another person's credit and therefore has no impact on the economy. What are the implications of this thinking and what changes when the realisation that the banking sector is also involved and so is is the relative velocity of money in different hands. If we accepted that debt and credit don't always can cancel each other out how would that change the approach of governments and the monetary policy of Central Banks?

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What would Keynes do now? Nov 23, 2022

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His answer to Great depression was that we should spend our way out. But now we have rampant inflation because people are spending too much. What would Keynes do now if he was presented with the challenge of trying to prevent the world from going into a global recession whilst also getting inflation under control? Steve and Phil look at the ideas of Keynes and ask would any of them help us in the situation we now find ourselves in.

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A long way from a Minsky moment Nov 16, 2022

Show notes

During the last big financial crisis there was a lot of talk about the work of Hyman Minsky. Even Janet Yellen, at the time the chair of the San Francisco Fed, said there were a lot of lessons in his work for central bankers. What did she mean? Or, as Steve Keen asks, has she actually read any of his work? This week Phil asks Steve what was the thinking behind Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis. And what was a Minsky moment, and why are we so far from one right now?

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Will more realistic pricing of energy and pollution save the planet? Nov 09, 2022

Show notes

In a recent podcast Steve Keen claimed that the law of thermodynamics dictates that we can no longer extend economic growth whilst looking for efficiencies in our use of energy. This week Phil questions Steve more on this. After all, so much of the growth we have seen over the last 100 years has come from the way we harness energy and use it to better effect. Can’t we just keep doing that? And could we use economics to fix the problems it has created, by more accurtaelyt pricing the real cost of energy and pollution? Even if we could – and Steve says we are already consuming too much of the earth’s resources - the International Energy Agency reckons if we are to reach net zero by 2050, then energy efficiency needs to improve by 4% per year. We’re a long way from achieving that, so is it time for a reality check?

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Private or public – getting the balance right Nov 02, 2022

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Last week on the Debunking Economics podcast Phil and Steve talked about the likely imposition of Austerity 2.0 around the world, in particular in the UK. Steve said there’s really no need for it. This week he explains more about how cuts in the government deficit starves the private sector of cash, which will guarantee a recession, or worse. Listen in for an easy-to-follow explanation of how a government deficit increases money in circulation and how reducing that deficit shrinks the money supply. They talk about Wynne Godley’s explanation of sectoral balances, and how the interplay between government spending and private sector money is how the economy works now. The complicating factor, is foreign spending. What happens when government money finds itself overseas?

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Ready for Austerity 2.0? Oct 26, 2022

Show notes

With big-spending Boris gone, Britain’s new Prime Minister will almost certainly promote austerity 2.0, under the guise of fiscal conservatism. He won’t be alone in that, with governments the world over trying to reduce the deficit they incurred during the pandemic. But is austerity the way to help the economy back onto its feet? And do governments need to balance their books?

In August the UK government spent £10 billion than its income. Listen in to find out why you should be thinking of that as new money added to the UK’s £2.2 trillion economy, rather than an expense that has to be repaid. Slower spending by governments and fiscal tightening by central banks will shrink the money supply at a time when people are already struggling through lower real wages, higher inflation and cuts to public services. Are governments ready to hasten the downward spiral?

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Can we get by without growth, growth, growth? Oct 19, 2022

Show notes

Before her plans were ripped up, the UK’s newest Prime Minister was promising growth, growth, growth in an economy that has avoided it for a long time. And she was going to do it through that tried and tested method of trickle-down economics! Cut taxes for the rich and watch the economy grow. Sadly, we’ll never know whether it worked or not because the plans have been ditched and its back to higher taxes and less government spending. More austerity and low growth. But, Phil asks Steve, isn’t low growth what we need? If we want to save the planet surely we have to abandon the idea that each year we consume that little bit more? But how do you do that when entrepreneurs need the growth imperative to come up with those innovative ideas that improve our lives. Without the incentive for companies to grow wouldn’t we end up with a Soviet-style centrally planned economy, producing lots of stuff that nobody wants.

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Understanding the cost and value of money Oct 12, 2022

Show notes

We all know money has a value, but if you are borrowing it, it also has a cost. But aside from buying houses and a few other big items, we generally are more concerned with the value of the money we earn rather than the cost of the money we borrow. Today we look at the relationship between the cost and value of money, and ask whether the instability in interest rates is hindering our ability to plan for our future. What would happen if interest rates were fixed? And what about the rising cost of money, when governments need to spend more money to support us when times are tough – like now, for example?

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What's the right level of inflation? Oct 05, 2022

Show notes

The world is living in fear of rising inflation. Central banks are trying to combat it by pushing up interest rates, which means people also now fear how much their mortgage is going to cost. So, are they making matters better or just adding to the problem? This week Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen if inflation is as big a problem as central banks make out, and whether hiking interest rates will fix the problem this time round. And why a 2% inflation target. It’s the aim of most central banks to get inflation down to that level, but it sounds like it had a rather haphazard, unscientific origin. If they changed the target to, say, 4 percent, what would happen? More to the point, what would happen if these banks did nothing at all?

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