The webinar organised by Phil Dobbie for BTNet went over very well this morning, with about 80 attendees and a lively discussion mediated by Phil. Unfortunately a power outage meant that GoToMeeting‘s recording of the presentation only commenced half way through, so to make amends Phil and I re-recorded it this afternoon. We lost some of the interactivity, but the information comes through very well in this format.
To see this re-recording, please click on either of the following links:
Phil Dobbie’s BTNet page “Aussie Rules”; or
A direct link to GoToMeeting.
You have to register with GoToMeeting to see the recording, but it’s well worth it. I found the medium and the software so effective that I plan to use it here–or possibly on the Centre for Economic Stability when that’s up and running–as a way of giving regular web lectures.
I used this PowerPoint slideshow (this is the PDF), and these Excel worksheets to illustrate one of the basic points, that it’s not just the level of debt, or its rate of change that matters, but the rate of change of the rate of change of debt: you can have a recession simply because the rate of change of debt slows down–even if debt is still growing–and a boom because the rate of decline of debt slows down–even if debt is falling. The files here are:
- A basic example (with a “Goldilocks” economy in which GDP is unaffected by the change of Debt–thanks to blog member bb who first developed an example like this in the discussion on this blog);
- The US in the 1930s
- The US now
- Australia now
On another note, I am getting closer to formally declaring the Centre for Economic Stability open for business. We have formed an Non-Profit Association, it is now registered for tax exemption as a charitable research institution, and shortly we’ll also be registered to offer tax-deductibility for donations. Once that last step is in place I will try to move a lot of the activity across to that organisation, and I’ll also put out a call for membership at the rate (decided by the original meeting of the Association) of A$100 p.a. for those with wage or other full-time income, and A$25 p.a. for others.
I hope that a reasonable proportion of the now almost 6,000 members of this blog will sign up. The ambition of the Centre is to enable the non-orthodox research that I do into monetary dynamics to be developed more effectively, and for the Centre to become an empirically based alternative to the rather ideologically focused “think tanks” (“opinion tanks”?) that tend to dominate the public discourse on economics today.
Only available on windows
Steve
“it’s not just the level of debt, or its rate of change that matters, but the rate of change of the rate of change of debt”
A second order differential! Does this also mean that Capitalism is an acceleration junky?
I believe the following article has to be mentioned as it is the best example of the worst features of the current system based on the idea of absolute property rights:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/water-issues/thirsty-foreigners-soak-up-scarce-water-rights-20100903-14uev.html
I know that it may appear out of context of the Webinar post (but is in fact a continuation of an off-line discussion).
“Foreign investors have already bought millions of litres of water rights in our most strategic food-producing areas and are poised to buy more after the massive shake-out tipped to occur when the long-awaited Murray-Darling Basin plan is released.”
…
“In some financial circles water is dubbed ”blue gold”. The online investment journal Investment U recently had the headline, ”The oil of the 21st century … how ‘blue gold’ can make you rich”.
Australia has spawned the most advanced water market in the world, with more than $3 billion worth of rights changing hands last year.
More than $2 billion of that trade took place in NSW, making this state’s water market equal to the entire value of the country’s wool exports.
The federal Labor government helped inflate the price by buying more than $1 billion worth of water as drought bit last year, accelerating its $3.1 billion buyback of water in the Murray-Darling Basin.”
…
“‘There is a chronic supply/demand imbalance for Australian water which will result in higher water prices,” says the website of the Causeway Water Fund, whose managing director Richard Lourey will scour the world for investors.”
…
“The federal Treasury says it never looks specifically at foreign acquisition of water licences, and takes an interest only if a foreign player is buying an agribusiness worth more than $231 million.
Mr Lourey rejects fears about ”water barons”, claiming his investment fund will allow ”water to be used in the most productive way possible. We would argue that’s in Australia’s strategic best interests”.”
My comments:
Again I can see the same argument – “market-based allocation will lead to the best possible outcome”. This “best outcome” will most likely include the irreversible destruction of the ecosystems and as a consequence, the destruction of the economy. But who cares? Capitalism seems to be a kind of cult to me. It is not only driven by the second derivative of the credit stock but it is also an attempt to divide everything by zero. Zero is the assumed environmental cost of all the activities the individuals undertake.
To me the only way to fix this problem is to severely restrict or abandon the idea of water allocations in terms of private property rights. This is what is fundamentally wrong.
How can we defend almost absolute private property rights on water in the first place? Why do we need them? Aborigines didn’t have private water allocations and they survived in Australia for more than 40000 years. Tradeable water allocation rights as defined in Australia (or in the US) do not exist in the most of other countries. The legal framework for water allocation is usually much more complex and based on the assumption that water is a common resource which has to be managed.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/y5690e/y5690e08.htm
Even in the EU (I am not a big fan of it) water allocation is subjected to long-term planning and management:
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/environment/water_protection_management/l28002b_en.htm
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/environment/water_protection_management/l28196_en.htm
The government (the representation of the whole society) not the market must take responsibility of determining who can use the water for what. Farmers may be for example explicitly told that cotton plantations have to be replaced by crops which don’t require irrigation. Is this a violation of the liberty? It depends how we define the “liberty”. The destruction of the environment is to me the restriction of MY liberty and violation of OUR common property rights.
These are just the first baby steps:
greens.org.au/files/Murray_Darling_Basin.pdf
Water belongs to the Nation, to all of us, to the state. Individuals and corporations may have certain restricted rights to purchase water from the state – not to harvest it from a river, pay a nominal tax and do whatever they want.
We may have certain moral obligations to the other nations as well – that is to grow crops to feed people who would otherwise starve to death.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100902/ap_on_re_af/af_food_riots
Hi Steve,
Here’s someone you should contact re: this webinar.
Have you spent much time in the L.A. area? KCRW Radio is one of the best public stations re: non MSM content. Check out their website and the link for Which Way, L.A.? I think they’d go for a new perspective on the realties of debt.
http://www.kcrw.com
“Only available on windows
”
Second that. BOOOOO!
Webex seems friendlier to other operating systems, allowing both presenting and viewing using several different ones. You might give it a try and compare it to GoToMeeting.
http://www.webex.com/what-is-webex/faqs.html
In either case, I request you convert the recording to .wmv and post it somewhere where it is easy to download and possible to view on (almost) any operating system.
Indeed Hawkeye! The testosterone-fixated image of capitalism is confirmed. As Minsky put it ages ago, the fundamental instability in capitalism is upwards–and that’s its real trap.
Thanks Grumpy! This was my first experience of webinars, and arranged by someone else for me, so GoToMeeting was someone else’s choice. I’ll check out this alternative though–thanks.
One of the hassles I anticipate though is the user interface: as much as I loathe Windoze, I often find that products that are available on it (such as Mathcad) don’t have any peer on other operating systems in terms of the UI. I hope that’s not the case here.
Thanks Soho,
I’m rarely there but I will be in the USA for the week of 15-19 November, starting in New York and finishing in LA. It’s to conduct some seminars on Australian housing for CLSA, a major brokerage and analysis firm specialising in “without fear or favour” analysis as opposed to the “Buy! Buy! Buy!” norm in the industry. It’s a whirlwind trip but I may have time for an interview on the way out. Would you mind checking with them for me?
PS Just checked out Webex: it has a limit of 25 attendees. GoToSeminar caters for up to 1,000.
Steve,
What about this?
1. A live video stream from the event (which may be a webinar) may be made available using simple tools:
http://www.linkingpeopletogether.com/avblog/?p=8
This may bypass the limit on the number of passive participants and you will not be bound by any restrictions imposed by the organisers.
2. The recording may be then made available offline.
3. A real-time chat can be easily facilitated up using Skype or Google Chat. After a seminar/lecture a QA session may be organised.
I may set up a demo if requested.
Thanks AK, but this is different to what I did with GoTo, which captures my screen and sends it to participants, and also allows them to ask questions during the presentation by either text or speech, with a moderator screening the questions at the same time.
Steve,
But I didn’t want to change the format of the webinar. I only wanted to stream it to a larger number of passive participants and help making available off-line later.
Currently severe restrictions are in place – imposed by the software platform you’re using. A physical media server is required so for a large number of participants real costs can be substantial.
BTW I have found this browser-only platform as an alternative (free to up-to 10 participants):
http://www.dimdim.com/solutions/dimdim_education.html
I will have to crack the problem of interacting with the video cameras on embedded Linux anyway for the (…) change / environmental research project I’m contributing to.
Still cameras work already perfectly well but we want to see more…
http://thistle.org/penguin/index.shtml
N.B. the penguins haven’t arrived yet.
Steve,
Regarding the KCRW program. They’re well known for never having any in-studio guests. They ring up all the guests and go from there. So you wouldn’t have to actually be there.
I rang them up earlier today and pitched the idea. My source there said she’d pass it onto their producer. But, at this stage they’d really prefer to get an email (due to the volume of contacts they deal with). Then, if they’re interested they’ll contact you.
Check out this link and send your contact information:
http://www.kcrw.com/about/generic_contact_form?p_id=olney_warren
The advantages here? Nobody else is taking your approach to debt. Also, most stations tend to go with the same “name” guests. So, why not look at this from a fresh angle?
Who’s Warren Olney? Think of an L.A. version of George Negus.
I have no other contacts there. So at this stage that’s the best I can do. Unless it’s just out of the question right now, I’d suggest contacting them by next Monday. You’ve worked in media. It’s the old deadline thing ).
Good luck with it.
Thanks Soho, will do.
Thanks ak. That would require capturing the current video as well though–any ideas there?
Steve,
Another suggestion.
Here, public radio is mostly made of up of Pacifica Network affiliates:
KTPK
KPFA
KPFT
WBAI
WPFW
The others would be under the CPB (Corp. for Public Broadcasting). It’s kind of a smaller version of the ABC.
Unfortunately, these places are always subject to fundraising pressure. Now, many missed meeting their budget goals. Which means big cutbacks all across the board. Also, there’s a lot of internal politics happening this month (due to station board elections). Ideally, listeners can run for board seats and pitch their ideas. But the reality is there’s a lot of in-fighting at the moment.
Which is why I suggest trying KCRW. They’re outside of Pacifica and pretty independent at the moment. Which means your odds of getting on are a little bit better there.
I have no CPB contacts. But if you need more general information, let me know and I’ll pass it on.
Steve,
I need to work out a few things regarding webinars as I have 3 ideas and I need to test their feasibility. I’ll be back in a few days – possibly off-line so that this blog is not spammed.
This webinar can be played on Linux as it is not encrypted (no DRM embedded).
I followed the default registration steps on Windows and then copied the URI to my Linux box – it worked there.
I don’t know whether this location on the server will be persistent – most likely not. Please note that the location may be removed or that they may still verify the IP address of the client so it may not work for you.
First we need to get the asx file containing the real location of the nugget:
wget http://mfile.akamai.com/23543/wmv/citrixvar.download.akamai.com/23543/www/278/978/4734564696658278978/1-4734564696658278978-12ad6048c57.asx
then copy the location mentioned in the asx file and download the stream to a file using mimms as wget doesn’t know how to deal with the streaming protocol (mimms needs to be installed separately)
mimms mms://a981.v235432.c23543.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/981/23543/v0001/citrixvar.download.akamai.com/23543/www/278/978/4734564696658278978/1-4734564696658278978-12ad6048c57.wmv
Note. This process is slow.
I end up having a wmv file (almost 60 MB) which I can play using mplayer
Steve I can send you that file and you can stream it from your blog – I’m assuming nobody can deny your copyright.
Anyway this the webinar is interesting especially if you watch it a few times.
What about this Java software? I think that there are some restrictions there on what can be played but it looks quite convincing to me (I saw the demo)
https://www.webhuddle.com/
Hello Steve. I can’t even get those xlsx files to open in Windows 7. After downloading one, I see that Windows is using the IE5 (Internet Explorer 5) shells in Windows. 1999 is really old in web terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_5
Being one that appreciates open source and interoperability. I am in horror that Microsoft has it own propriety standards when it concerns that great web language XML.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xml
But Microsoft will not support true XML until they believe that they support it correctly. This same notion allows many businesses, universities and government agencies to use quirks mode in IE (IE5 is permanently in quirks mode) to create intranets, databases and etc.
This is true XML rendering a basic SVG document (Supported in Firefox, Safari and Opera).
http://css-class.com/test/svg/background-position.xml
This is IE (any version) in quirks mode.
http://css-class.com/test/bugs/ie/ie-chaos2.htm
The point is Steve, can anyone (maybe from the IT department in the University of Western Sydney) point you to using applications that are based on open standards and interoperability.
I attended the webinar on my iMac and had no problems, except that my microphone didn’t work. (I’ll buy another one with a USB interface). Very informative experience. The details in discussing trends come through very well, in contrast to just an article on the web. The moving pointer on the slides presented is very helpful. Keep up the good work, Steve, and count me in.
Great webinar presentation Steve. Re Otto C’s question from (Aug 29, 2010) and Steve’s reply.
Why isn’t that portion of new debt spent in a way that increases GDP being doubly counted in Minsky’s definition of aggregate demand?
Here’s a possible answer. Physicists trying to learn economics, and perhaps other amateurs, yearn for a principle like conservation of energy and intuitively imagine money might be such a variable. But money isn’t conserved, as made particularly clear in Steve’s “Cavaliers of Credit” post. (It was a shock to me to discover that banks effectively create much of the money they lend.)
So yes, that part of new debt spent on commodities does increase GDP and it doesn’t matter. We are talking about a ‘measure’ of economic activity and Steve and Minsky believe that GDP + new Debt, or ‘aggregate demand’, is a better measure than GDP alone. Looking at the anti-correlation Steve shows between new debt and unemployment, it is easy to believe that aggregate demand as Steve (Minsky) defines it is a much better measure.
Am I anywhere near understanding this?
Yankeejim
I’m curious about the “Center for Economic Stability”.
It is one thing to track what is going on in the present economy and predict new developments, it is another to come up with proposals to remedy the bubble nature of the present system?
The “bubble” nature just isn’t of the present system, but the nature of market economy as a whole. Thanks to the strict credit controls of the post-war era, bubbles died out in response to strict capital controls.
The real issue is the lack of fresh capital. The 19th century was a economic struggle for alot of the western world. 1820′s-40s’ were desolute overall outside a “oasis” from the late 20′s to mid-30′s. Then it returned in the 1870′s to 1890′s which triggered imperialism to keep growth going. The 20th century saw a remarkable change in the worlds fortunes as fresh capital pretty much was a common feature minus the 30′s. By the 70′s, there was to much fresh capital.
But the party appears over in this regard and I suspect it explains alot of the credit loosening over the last 30 years. If economies can’t grow, capitalism dies.
That sounds good AK. I will check about whether I can use the wmv file: GoToMeeting gave us free use of their software (we were a bit of a demo of what it can do) and I wouldn’t like to damage that trust. Though I agree with Alan G above about open source (and I just had an awful half-day yesterday fighting with Microsoft Word 2007′s pathetic handling of styles while trying to write an exam script!), I also respect the need for some degree of commercial copyright.
Hi YankeeJim,
Yes you’ve nailed it. The conventional way of thinking about debt–that it is simply a transfer of someone’s savings to someone else’s–is a conservation “law”. If it were true, aggregate debt would remain constant. Though this is manifestly not the case, most people perceive banks as simple intermediaries who transfer one person’s spending power (the saver) to another (the borrower). But since banks can and do create debt and spending power ab initio, debt is not conserved and therefore its increase has to be added to aggregate demand.