I had a couple of impromptu interviews with overseas internet media groups this week–Dominic Frisby interviewed me on my expectations for 2011 on his “Frisby’s Bulls and Bears” program, and Michael Surkan interviewed me for the internet radio/podcast progam The Optimistic Bear. I’ve excerpted the introductions from the two websites below; to hear the interviews themselves, click on the main links below.
The Frisby interview
In part VIII of our of shows looking at 2011, Dominic Frisby talks to Australian economist Steve Keen of Debtdeflation.com.
Steve is Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney, and author of the popular book Debunking Economics (Zed Books UK, 2001).
Steve predicted the financial crisis as long ago as December 2005, and warned that back in 1995 that a period of apparent stability could merely be “the calm before the storm”. His leading role as one of the tiny minority of economists to both foresee the crisis and warn of it was recognised by his peers when he received the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review for being the economist who most cogently warned of the crisis, and whose work is most likely to prevent future crises.
He has over 50 academic publications on topics as diverse as financial instability, the money creation process, mathematical flaws in the conventional model of supply and demand, flaws in Marxian economics, the application of physics to economics, Islamic finance, and the role of chaos and complexity theory in economics. His work has been translated into Chinese, German and Russian.
Click here to read Steve’s essay of December 2009 on the global debt crisis, Debtwatch No 41, December 2009: 4 Years of Calling the GFC.
Click here for more on the book, Debunking Economics.
This Week on Bear radio: A moment of Minsky
In this episode Steve Keen shares his knowledge of economics to not only debunk the reverence paid to economists by policy makers but to explain that the titans of the economic theory are misunderstood. Keynes wasn’t the advocate for stimulus spending as many assume and Karl Marx actually had a lot of great insights that are conveniently swept under the carpet. Steve goes on to provide a tutorial on the life and ideas of his hero Hyman Minsky, explaining how this was one of the few who understood the sheer unpredictability that underlies all economics. We also discuss the how there is nothing special about the Australian, Canadian, or Chinese economies other than the fact that they have been able to breathe new life into their economies by blowing bigger bubbles. The end result is inevitable: global deflation.
