Debunking Economics 2 Launch October 4th 2011

[NathanZackery]

I'll ask the question we were all wondering: who is that woman, and how come she muscled in on your book launch? Most of us would rather have heard you speak for the full hour.

[ProfSteveKeen]

@NathanZackery Ann Pettifor is one of the other handful of economists who warned of the crisis before it happened, and the organiser of my launch. So on two fronts she well and truly deserved to talk there. I wish we could have had more time too, but we had only a 2 hour segment between two normal lectures at the UCl.

[ProfSteveKeen]

@MrAlienlovechild It's substantial: 95,000 words longer mainly on macro, four chapters re-written as well.

[juujuuuujj]

Looking forward to reading the book. One quick comment on Ann Pettifor's defense of credit - yes, investment through credit can generate production (just like investment through savings). But the very purpose of the banking industry is to generate profits by lending out to as many customers as possible, and by shifting risk to other market participants. So lending needs to be managed by something other than a profit-oriented industry.

[NathanZackery]

@juujuuuujj Yes I quite agree. Perhaps banks should simply be a public utility which lends to entrepreneurs, and not to non-productive areas e.g. mortgages. Given the amount of public money that has been spent on banks recently, it isn't really that radical a proposal.

[juujuuuujj]

@NathanZackery Yes. Some "businesses", like banking, gambling (lotteries), water, energy distribution are so simple, and require so little innovation, that they don't need the profit motive as a booster.

[rolgorevene]

all austrians called the crisis aswell, and they have a sound logical framwork to build their theories on.

[radscorpion8]

@rolgorevene They reject the use of empirical evidence as a way of falsifying/supporting their claims though (just reading this from the criticisms section of the wikipedia article). How can you take the austrians seriously when the can make no testable claims? Isn't that like a religion, where you just have faith that it works? I may be wrong on the evidence, but I thought that was the major reason why academics don't take Austrians seriously. Would be interested in prof. Keen's response

[rolgorevene]

@radscorpion8 Austrians realise economics is a social science, and therefor using emperical data is a stupid way of testing theories. economists want to be physicist, but they arnt. econometrics do not account for the single most important input in economics; "human action". read the book by the way, by Ludvig Von Mises. (one of the greatest austrian economists).

This is why there is no nobel prize in economics. A little known fact, but its the Swedish national banks prize, not Nobel.

[rolgorevene]

we did have a break yeah.

[Ape65]

I`m eagerly awaiting lecture 7 of your behavioral finance course. Am I correct in guessing that Australian universities have had a mid-term break for the past few weeks?

[ProfSteveKeen]

@Ape65 Yes. I'll post that lecture later this week--though I'll leave the launch video up as the main video for a while longer.

[jak1428]

great video. thanks.