Steve Keen On A Bunch Of Stuff

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

The audio is a speech he recently gave; the video his Powerpoint presentation accompanying the speech.

Wonk Alert: He rushes through the thing (probably do to time constraints), and presents info only economists would love. If you haven't read his blog or book, Debunking Economics——and even if you have, but aren't an econ prof——it might go over your head, like most of it did mine.

Oh, and in the presentation he mentions a back-and-forth pissing match between him and Paul Krugman. Do go to the blog and check out the entries on this match. It summerizes the key differences between economists the government and press turn to for econ advice, and the economists (like Keen) who actually predicted the economic crisis we're now in.

Later this afternoon, I keep catching up on Keen's blog and find this video from some "alternative" news station, Russia Today.

If this is there finance show, I'm a fan. They are, after all, talking about economic issues as if they were economic reporters, not fan-boys and fan-girls of investment houses and synchophants to the same rotten core of people who got us into this economic Jenga tower in the first place.

Oh, and LJ? Please stop converting the embed codes to shit that simply don't work. K? THNX.

Comments

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

The audio and Power Point presentation seem to be missing from your post.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Oh, LJ, what can't you FUBAR? Lately they've been converting the new YT embed codes to something called "lj embed" which then don't bother working.

I've converted the vids back to the old YT code. Give it a whirl, and thanks for the heads up.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Krugman surely seems to be a big fan of these kind of brain-fights, isn't he?

Interesting stuff.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Looks yucky.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Would probably just gum up your robit parts anyways.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Setting aside whether Keen is "right", I put a lot of stock in what he says simply because economics is not yet a mature science, and so stands a few revolutions and paradigm shifts in its future. And since the economy is the basic, formative, generative power of history, we can see that the ultimate hubris of neoclassical/neoliberal/philophsically neo-conservative "end of history" nonsense is so much, well, nonsense.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Setting aside whether Keen is "right". . .

I don't feel that Keen is right, but that his conclusions seem plausible. Questions of "right" and "wrong" belong in a theoretical discussion. Economics should be an empirical, observational study, where the most accurate predictions get the biggest cookie. That hasn't been the case for some decades now.

Heck, Alfred Nobel didn't endow a prize for econ. The Bank of Switzerland created what I call the Fauxbel Prize, I think, to give greater scientific standing to economists. Sadly, when they created that prize in 1968, few economists were worthy of it.

That is changing, happily. Soon there might be some economists quoted on mainstream media who actually have a grasp on our Western banking system, specifically on the method used to create money through lending.

So, yeah, I agree. We can't understand history until we understand the forces that move and motivate people, and money is right up there with sex and food as a motivator and mover. If we get that wrong (looking at you, Bernanke), we fail to appreciate the forces that lead to lives of lower quality . . . and repeat the mistakes made the first time.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I guess I don't see a distinction between a theoretical science and an empirical one.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

The difference is simple: one is a science. The non-empirical one is not.

The more I read about neoclassical economics, the more it is clear that the practitioners do not regard empiricism as a requirement. Some even see fitting theory to evidence as getting in the way of the process.

I wish I were kidding.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I mean, empirical sciences are just as much theoretical sciences as any other. The distinction is an awkward one.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Awkward, yes, but in most sciences the theoretical must be proven or disproven empirically before it is widely accepted. It might be years, even decades, before some theories can be tested (Einstein's especially knotty theories come to mind), but until they are tested, they are considered provisional.

Economics hasn't done this lately. The entire field is dominated by a mythos that regards empirical testing as beneath its dignity, and actively rejects publication of theories that assault the neoclassical core beliefs, even though these newer theories are testable and provable.

Case in point: Ben Bernanke gets lots of press for being a "scholar" of the Great Depression. It turns out he missed the largest cause, largely because the neoclassical folk don't believe debt is important or worthy of their consideration. Because of this blind spot, he sailed the world's largest economy into a bubble and was flabbergasted as to how it happened, just like his predecessor Greenspan.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I was not impressed with the model Keen presents at the beginning of his presentation. It seems to omit a wide range of economic activity.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Do you have particulars in mind?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

For one thing, it omits competition between banks and and between producers.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

For a simple modeling, that would be unnecessary. All banks, after all, do the same thing, as do all producers.

In a chapter in his book, Keen also noted that the neoclassical tenet of faith stating that competition leads to lower prices for consumers is flawed. It would take too long to explain here (even if I could remember it well enough), but suffice to say that the conclusion is based on grievously flawed premises. Keen found that a benevolent monopoly would price consumables at about the same rate as a market with many different players, but with (probably) less diversity of choice. For chief consumables like food, this really isn't a problem. Corn is corn, bacon is bacon, etc.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about this Keen, but anybody who puts Krugman in his place can't be all bad.