Talking with Peter Switzer
Peter Switzer interviewed me last night on his Sky News program. We discuss the Euro, why default is preferable to rescheduling, fiscal austerity versus deficit funding, Nobel Prize Winner Prescott saying that the Great Depression was an extended holiday, Australian property, what is a house price crash (comparing Japan and the USA to Australia), how does Australia’s housing market really differ from the USA’s, what really makes house prices rise, stock market performance in the next decade, the Credit Accelerator and the ups and downs of a down-trending market, the pain in Spain, and what it might lead to.
Peter and I go back a very long way–we did our Masters degrees together at the University of New South Wales in the late 1980s. I then followed the academic route, while Peter successfully pursued a career in journalism, and then formed his own company focusing on business advice, and we have remained in touch since as friends and professional colleagues. It’s always a pleasure to speak with him, as I think shows in this 14 minute interview.
The last few minutes of the interview is quite instructive because it demonstrates BOTH the short term/short sighted AND long term/far sighted perspective on the GFC as well as contrasts the opportunistic versus the ethical perspective on its progression. Steve’s perspective is the latter and the wiser in both cases, and for that he should be commended instead of hinted on as a doomsayer.
Keep it up Steve. The wisdom of the longer and more ethical perspective on an actual ongoing disaster is the one that considers the negative effect upon the greater number of individuals.
Steve, 12 of the last 20 posts on this blog have come from you.
TININT has expressed frustration that your comments are dominating the blog in sheer volume, and I have to agree with him here.
Blogs are kept vibrant by people leaving space for others to comment. I would like you to make a bit of room for others and post less frequently.
Naughty boy!
I am guilty of that in other non-economic forums sometimes. Best cure is to go to the movies or something, lol.
Not a problem. In fact as I stated before I have unfinished work to complete and new things to pursue. And being asked politely is both appreciated and understood.
And an occasional annoyance probably does communicates better than a continual assault with wisdom anyway. Thank you for reminding me of that.
Just saw The Dark Knight Rises. meh. Some therapies don’t kick in right away.
Couldn’t resist. Signing off for the greater part, but “I’ll Be Back.”
Looking at the American share market it seems to have definitely reached it’s peak. There is obviously an effect as people no longer see their investments getting larger and as a consequence them richer, and they reduce spending.
Anyway now I know that the depression was caused by people not having jobs everything is explained.
GOLD
Who thinks Gold is a good buy now, with Australian dollars?
The AU$ will obviously collapse to US50c in the next 2-6 years, but will Gold fall too? Perhaps that is a good way to preserve wealth? Any comments are appreciated.
I think AUD is correlated somewhat with gold.. so when one falls so does the other, in theory. I have not really looked properly though.
@ Steve Keen
I really hope that Mish will soon reply to the discussion you raised. To be honest, I would find that discussion the most interesting with regard to finding a way forward. You may prompt your friend to counter your latest arguments hopefully.
Peter Switzer seems to be have reached stage 3 of the Kübler-Ross model.
There was an awful lot of pleading in that interview. Hopefully acceptance will follow.
@Kalman
What makes you think the USD is going to double in value, relative to the AUD? The only way the US Govt can repay their debts is by debasing their currency.
Hi Steve,
great interview. I think the point around 11.30m tells us a lot about why journalists, politicians and the public fail to grasp the information presented to them. he even explains his thought process. to paraphrase, ‘well done on predicting how things went wrong, but your timing wasn’t perfect so how do we know you’re right this time and in this time frame, perhaps it will get better before it gets worse etc…’.
when people start using the D word, I think they’ll be really interested in your research.
Hi Steve,
I actually believe that the aussie house price declines will accelerate soon when investors (particularly negative geared ones) start getting out of the market due to negative returns on their investiments and no prospect of improvement for them. What are your thoughts on this scenario?
@C.K.
“What makes you think the USD is going to double in value, relative to the AUD?”
Carry trade unwind. As we in Aus lower our interest rates the hot money will flee back to the US and our dollar will crash.
I bought the second edition of DE and I need figures
but it is not possible to download them
it is just not fair
steve has helped, I have got figures
Glad to hear that Zvonimir.
For general reference, my Debunking Economics site is about to be re-launched as a paid subscription site, and in the interim that has deleted one of the links shown for downloading the eBook of additional figures for the book.
That eBook will always be available at this link at Zed’s site:
http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/debunking_economics
I enjoyed that discussion.
Steve Keen, I admire your work and I have been following you for the last 18 months. I have purchased your book, Debunking Economics and also got a copy of Peter Schiff’s – The Real Crash.
At the same time, I am also studying neo-classical economics at uni and trying to gauge the difference between the two schools of thought.
What I like to find out is how things will play out in the next 12 to 24 months and especially which direction our housing prices will go and our share market.