Archive for ‘April, 2011’

8 results.
Apr30

You gotta laugh

by Steve Keen on April 30th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Posted In: Debtwatch

A correspondent just sent me the following set of Depression jokes. I’ve seen it before, but there are a couple of new twists that are worth sharing.
US RECESSION
The recession has hit everybody really hard…

My neighbour got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.
Wives are having sex with their husbands because they can’t afford batteries.
CEO’s …

10 Comments
Apr29

Western Economic Association Presentation: Debt & House Prices

by Steve Keen on April 29th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Posted In: Debtwatch

The USA’s Western Economic Association International holds a Pacific Rim conference every two years, and this year the host was the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.

I spoke in two sessions on what Americans call “The Great Recession” and Australians calls the “GFC”–the Global Financial Crisis. The first session had two other papers of …

7 Comments
Apr18

Survey on Australian House Prices

by Steve Keen on April 18th, 2011 at 9:38 am
Posted In: Debtwatch

I have been asked to post a survey to gauge interest in a potential financial product related to Australian house prices. If you are interested in such a product, please click here to take this survey.

175 Comments
Apr11

This Time Had Better Be Different: House Prices and the Banks Part 2

by Steve Keen on April 11th, 2011 at 8:57 am
Posted In: Debtwatch

Click here for this post in PDF
Figure 1

In last week’s post I showed that there is a debt-financed, government-sponsored bubble in Australian house prices (click here and here for earlier installments on the same topic). This week I’ll consider what the bursting of this bubble could mean for the banks that have financed it.
Betting …

139 Comments
Apr10

Rally for Research

by Steve Keen on April 10th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Posted In: Debtwatch

The Discoveries Need Dollars campaign to stop the rumoured cuts to research funding will now have rallies in Sydney and Adelaide as well as in Melbourne:

MELBOURNE - State Library of Victoria (Swanston St) – Tuesday 12 April @ 12:45-2PM
RSVP via Rally for Research Facebook page (you need to be logged into Facebook to view this …

6 Comments
Apr09

Europe trip mid June

by Steve Keen on April 9th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Posted In: Debtwatch

I’m attending the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) annual conference in Madrid on June 23-25. Given that I have to fly from Australia, I’m making this an extended trip. I will spend 3 days in London (June 13-15), 3 in Paris (16-18), 3 in Barcelona (19-21) and 4 in Madrid (22-25).

As well …

6 Comments
Apr08

Digging another hole in our future

by Steve Keen on April 8th, 2011 at 10:05 am
Posted In: Debtwatch

There are widespread reports that the political fetish with returning the Federal government to a surplus will result in cuts to Australia’s research funding budget of close to half a billion dollars:

Research cuts put lives at risk, say medical institutes

Research cuts will create ‘brain drain’

These cuts are driven by an obsession with running a …

19 Comments
Apr01

This Time Had Better Be Different: House Prices and the Banks Part 1

by Steve Keen on April 1st, 2011 at 10:02 am
Posted In: Debtwatch

Click here for this post in PDF
Before the US house price bubble burst, its banks and regulators claimed (a) that there wasn’t a bubble and (b) that, if house prices did fall, it wouldn’t affect the solvency of the banks.

The same claims are now being made about Australian house prices and Australian banks. On …

109 Comments