About Steve Keen

I am Professor of Economics and Head of Economics, History and Politics at Kingston University London, and a long time critic of conventional economic thought. As well as attacking mainstream thought in Debunking Economics, I am also developing an alternative dynamic approach to economic modelling. The key issue I am tackling here is the prospect for a debt-deflation on the back of the enormous private debts accumulated globally, and our very low rate of inflation.

A Simple Solution to the Banking Crisis That No Country Will Implement

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Though Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank con­tributed to its own demise, the root cause of this cri­sis is the fact that pri­vate banks own gov­ern­ment bonds. If they did­n’t, then SVB would still be sol­vent.

Its bank­rupt­cy was the result of the price of Trea­sury bonds falling, because The Fed­er­al Reserve increased inter­est rates. As inter­est rates rise, the val­ue of Trea­sury Bonds falls. With the resale val­ue of its bonds plung­ing, the total val­ue of SVB’s assets (which were main­ly Bonds, Reserves, and Loans to house­holds and firms) fell below the val­ue of its Lia­bil­i­ties (which are main­ly the deposits of house­holds and firms), and it col­lapsed.

How does JK Galbraith’s The New Industrial Estate hold up after 6 decades?

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I was asked to con­tribute to an Ital­ian online pub­li­ca­tion’s trib­ute to John Ken­neth Gal­braith, by answer­ing some ques­tions about the rel­e­vance of his major work The New Indus­tri­al State (Gal­braith and Gal­braith 1967) six decades lat­er. These were my respons­es.

About sixty years later, how relevant and actual is the vision of the American economy and economic system proposed by John K. Galbraith in his “The new industrial state”?

Read­ing The New Indus­tri­al State (Gal­braith and Gal­braith 1967) again, six decades after it was first pub­lished, high­light­ed for me just how far eco­nom­ic the­o­ry has retreat­ed from real­i­ty since the 1960s.

How does JK Galbraith’s The New Industrial Estate hold up, six decades on?

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I was asked to con­tribute to an Ital­ian online pub­li­ca­tion’s trib­ute to John Ken­neth Gal­braith, by answer­ing some ques­tions about the rel­e­vance of his major work The New Indus­tri­al State (Gal­braith and Gal­braith 1967) six decades lat­er. These were my respons­es.

About sixty years later, how relevant and actual is the vision of the American economy and economic system proposed by John K. Galbraith in his “The new industrial state”?

Read­ing The New Indus­tri­al State (Gal­braith and Gal­braith 1967) again, six decades after it was first pub­lished, high­light­ed for me just how far eco­nom­ic the­o­ry has retreat­ed from real­i­ty since the 1960s.

Discussing a Modern Debt Jubilee on Macro’n’Cheese

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I dis­cuss a Mod­ern Debt Jubilee On Macro’n’Cheese today, and this is a quick expla­na­tion of how it could be done.

Jubilees were com­mon in antiq­ui­ty. The Lord’s Prayer did not orig­i­nal­ly say “And for­give us our sins, as we have for­giv­en those who sin against us”, but “And for­give us our debts, as we also have for­giv­en our debtors”. But an old-fash­ioned Jubilee would reward those who gam­bled with bor­rowed mon­ey, and thus effec­tive­ly penalise those who did not. It would also effec­tive­ly bank­rupt the banks, since their assets—our debts—would fall, while their liabilities—our deposits—would remain con­stant.

Shutting down membership

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I have recent­ly estab­lished a Patre­on site https://www.patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen, where peo­ple can sup­port my research and advo­ca­cy work with dona­tions start­ing at $1/month. That is now where I will engage in con­ver­sa­tion in response to posts. So if any­one here wants to con­tin­ue a dia­logue with me and oth­ers, please sign up there.

This site was flood­ed by a large num­ber of spam users at the same time as I became unable to main­tain my own role in dis­cus­sions here, since I am just too damn busy in Lon­don. This has caused the site to be sus­pend­ed three times by its ISP for per­for­mance issues. One more time and the account will be banned. I have there­fore decid­ed to delete all users on this site, bar those who have made posts (which is a hand­ful of indi­vid­u­als of course).

Brexit debate in London May 31st

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I’m tak­ing part in a debate on one of the major top­ics in this year’s elec­tion, Brex­it, on May 31st at 7.30pm at Can­ham, 40 Sheen Lane, Lon­don SW14 8LW. The oth­er speak­ers are Frances Cop­po­la, and Angus Arm­strong.

  • Frances Cop­po­la is an eco­nom­ic com­men­ta­tor in print and fre­quent­ly on the BBC.
  • Angus Arm­strong is direc­tor of macro-eco­nom­ics at one of the top research insti­tu­tions, the Nation­al Insti­tute of Eco­nom­ic and Social Research found­ed in 1938.

Click here to buy tick­ets for this event.

Freezing site/Moving to Patreon & Profstevekeen

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I’m freez­ing this site and mov­ing to both Patre­on (https://www.patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen) and a new web­site http://www.profstevekeen.com/. There are sev­er­al rea­sons:

  • This site’s signup secu­ri­ty failed, and some­thing like 50,000 bot-users have signed up.
    • It’s just too cum­ber­some in Word­Press to delete them selec­tive­ly from here, so it’s eas­i­er to move to a new, clean site;
  • I used to be very active in dis­cus­sions here, but the demands on my time became so exces­sive over time that I have vir­tu­al­ly stopped par­tic­i­pat­ing;

What if my analysis is used for evil purposes?

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One of my Patrons posed a very good ques­tion to me: in a nut­shell, how would I respond to a politi­cian who took my ideas and per­vert­ed them for polit­i­cal gain? Here’s Andre’s full query:

Hi Steve, thank you, you’ve giv­en me the gift of some of the most impor­tant ideas and expla­na­tions I’ve come across in my life­time.

I was won­der­ing how you might respond to a politi­cian who mis­reads your lat­est book, and then declares:

1.  Peo­ple will love me, because Steve Keen says I can become known as a mas­ter of man­ag­ing my coun­try’s econ­o­my by engi­neer­ing a pri­vate debt boom