Debunking Economics - the podcast

The world is living in fear of rising inflation. Central banks are trying to combat it by pushing up interest rates, which means people also now fear how much their mortgage is going to cost. So, are they making matters better or just adding to the problem? This week Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen if inflation is as big a problem as central banks make out, and whether hiking interest rates will fix the problem this time round. And why a 2% inflation target. It’s the aim of most central banks to get inflation down to that level, but it sounds like it had a rather haphazard, unscientific origin. If they changed the target to, say, 4 percent, what would happen? More to the point, what would happen if these banks did nothing at all? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week Kwasi Kwarteng, the new UK Chancellor, announced a cut in taxes at the same time that the government was stepping in to subsidise rising energy costs for homes and businesses. The cost of all this dwarfs the money spent on the furlough scheme. That means there’s a heap of government money being pushed into the public sector. Conventional economists, of the Friedman mould, would argue that we’re already seeing inflation driven by too much money, so what abut this next blast of government spending? Could it make inflation worse? And what about the repercussions on income disparity – from the budget and its unforeseen consequences. Hopefully someone in the Treasury is listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shadow Banks can take the blame for the 2007-8 financial crisis, packaging up mortgages and selling them as securities to investors. It seems like there’s no lack of imagination when it comes to how these companies find new ways of making money. This week Phil asks Steve if shadow banks are all bad, or is there some good? Do they, for example, create competition for established banks? Or are they simply a mechanism for operators to work outside banking regulations. Is there a need for more regulation of the shadow banking sector? And what is a shadow bank anyway? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s clear, when energy becomes short in supply, free market forces can’t look after all of society. Just the wealthy. That’s why governments are having to step in, propping up an industry that is raking in massive profits. But could free market forces drive a more efficient delivery of energy, by making lower cost renewable energy able to compete on a more level playing field. Whilst there’s no doubt pricing is distorted in favour of fossil fuel provides, Steve tells Phil there’s still no option but to nationalise the provision of energy, something we know will never happen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Liz Truss, the UK’s latest Prime Minister, has vowed to review the mandate of the Bank of England (BoE). It’s unclear what outcome she wants, although Kwasi Kwarteng, who is likely to be the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, has suggested the BoE didn’t move fast enough to lift interest rates. Does that mean she wants more influence over the bank’s decision making? On this week’s podcast Phil Dobbie and Prof Steve Keen look at the approach taken by central banks this time round to reduce inflation and Phil asks Steve, if you were to change the function of central banks, what would you do? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whilst the US might be struggling a bit with inflation, its nothing compared to what’s likely to happen in Europe. This week Russia shuts down its gas pipeline to Europe, supposedly for repairs, but there’s no guarantee it will open again. Even if it does, supplies are a fraction of what they were and Europe wants to stop its reliance on Russia anyway – pushing prices sky high, with rationing the only likely solution. Meanwhile, the Euro is weakening as the dollar goes from strength to strength, and that’s adding to Europe’s inflation pressures. And throw a drought on to of all of that, adding to the energy and supply problems. Plus a growing wealth divide. Is there any good news for Europe? Steve Keen reckons the only answer, sadly, is for Europe to give-in to Putin and make swathes of Ukraine the sacrificial lamb as the only way to avoid economic collapse. Even then, Europe has a number of inherent problems to overcome. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It seems the whole approach to global trade is being redrawn. Donald Trump wanted to do less trade with China before the pandemic, and now with the Ukraine invasion the west wants to do less – preferably nothing - with Russia. Hardly surprising then that the BRICs nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are developing their own ecosystem that could see them trade less with the west, including developing their own trading currency to remove the reliance on the US dollar. Phil Dobbie talks to Steve Keen about the impact this would have on the West. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a question being asked more and more. How many of the things that we privatised should be brought back under state control, as energy companies record massive profits, yet those on low incomes are struggling to heat their homes? In the UK privatisation was rampant in the eighties, but were mistakes made? Steve Keen has a simple test as to whether some things are best managed by the public sector or the private sector? But what about public-private partnerships? Are they potentially the worst outcome of all? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the Why Curve podcast last week, Phil (and Roger Hearing) spoke to Daniel Gros, Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, who argued that the gas crisis in Europe will be largely resolved by the pricing mechanism. High gas prices from Russia are making LNG imports feasible, because Europe will pay more than Asia for supplies. It won’t completely bridge the shortfall, he says, but if Europeans make a 15 percent cut in usage, then there will be no need to negotiate with Putin. This week on the Debunking Economics podcast Steve Keen argues that the pricing mechanism ignores the needs of the poor and has, for decades, favoured the rich. The fact that governments need to subsidise low-income households against rising fuel prices, whilst energy companies report record profits, demonstrates just how broken the pricing mechanism is. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Central banks are pushing up interest rates to slow down the rate of inflation. The principle is simple. Supplies are constrained and demand is high, so we’re being charged more for practically everything. If we can slow demand then the demand-supply divide will narrow. But can you do that without throwing the world into a recession in the process? The US Federal Reserve seems to think so. They put out a paper last week, by Chris Waller and Andrew Figura, called ‘What does the Beveridge curve tell us about the likelihood of a soft landing?’ Today Phil Dobbie talks to Steve Keen about the argument that a soft-landing can be secured if there are fewer jobs being offered, not a reduction in the number of people employed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the UK petrol cars emit 128g of CO2 per kilometre. In the US they drive bigger cars, for longer, so the carbon impact is that much greater. But cars, buses and motorcycles account for less than 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Switching to electric could make a difference (unless of course the electricity is coal powered) but will it make a big enough difference, and are the objectives for Net Zero by 2050 really achievable? Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen, and asks, are we lulling ourselves into a false sense of security when we think electric cars are a big part of the answer to climate change? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As inflation grows around the world the US dollar enjoying multi-decade highs. To an extent, that’s helping mitigate the impact of inflation in the US by dampening the rising cost of imports. Most other places, though, are seeing the opposite happen. The rising dollar devalues local currencies making imports, including energy, more expensive, adding to inflation. This week Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen about the impacts of exchange rates on international trade and how nations could be starting to challenge the US dominance in currency markets. As Pola, a Debunking Economics Podcast listener asks, what happens as BRICs nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) move to payments in their own currencies instead of using the US dollar? Beyond that, what if they develop their own trading currency, similar to the Bancor proposed by Keynes back in the 1940s. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When British Prime Minister Theresa May said there was no magic money tree she was wrong. There is, but you still have to look after it. What happens if you take the money off the tree too quickly, and give it to the wrong people? Is that what’s happened over the last two years? This week Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen if there’s an optimum level of expansion to the money supply (through government spending) and how do we claw back from it if we have overspent? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Inflation is rising everywhere as supply chains hit prices in the shops and at the fuel bowsers. Central banks are responding to this the only way they know how – by pushing up interest rates. Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen what’s their rationale, when higher interest rates won’t fix the supply issues? Steve suggests there will be a rapid reversal in policy when the central banks realise the real damage they are doing to the economy. ‘There will be no soft landing’, he says. ‘There never is’. But what about taxation, asks Phil. Could demand be softened by taxing the high earners? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When COVID has gone and the war is over, will we return to the patterns of international trade we were enjoying just a few years ago? Steve Keen says not, which puts him in the camp of anti-globalists that FT columnist Martin Wolf wrote about recently, in an article ‘The big mistakes of the anti-globalisers’. This week Phil puts some of Martin’s arguments to Steve, including the evidence that international trade has significantly boosted GDP globally and helped reduce extreme poverty. Won’t a more self-sufficient approach turn back the clock on both those achievements. Listen in for why Steve thinks times have changed for good, as we focus on sustainability over efficiency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Conspiracy theorists are out there claiming that unelected representatives are holding power, using technology to control our behaviour. China has tried a bit of this social engineering, but there are those who believe its far broader than that. They also reckon the drive for us to not use cash is part of the agenda, so ‘they’ can track our behaviour. That’s why central banks (who are unelected representatives who control our behaviour) want to move to a digital currency and are against cryptocurrencies that they can’t control. This week Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen if there is any potential for truth behind this fearmongering. Maybe we could all do with a bit of control! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Central banks the world over are busy lifting interest rates and, at the same time, engaging in quantitative tightening. In other words, all those bonds they bought up, will progressively be sold back to the commercial banks they were bought from. As those central bank balance sheets start to fall, what impact does it have on the economy? Does it mean we’ll see a shrinking of the money supply. That’s the commonly held belief, but, in reality the shift will have little impact, except for making banks slightly better off. The bigger concern is when they sell off corporate bonds, as Prof Steve keen explains to Phil Dobbie in this week’s podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Tragedy of the Commons is a concept developed by William Forster Lloyd one hundred and fifty years ago. The argument is that if you allowed everybody to graze their cattle on common ground, with nobody in charge, the land would be overgrazed and the individual pursuits of many will result in destruction for all. So, do you put someone in charge, who imposes regulations on everyone. Or do you go the way of the free marketeers, who would argue that someone owns the land and rent sit out, with a vested interest in maintaining the long-term viability. Is there a definitive answer and how can we apply the Tragedy of the Commons to capitalism today? Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Central bankers and economists have often used the Phillips curve to determine the path of inflation. The problem is, they often get it wrong. No wonder then, that they question its validity when it doesn’t work the way it should. Call it operator error. On today’s podcast with Phil Dobbie, Steve Keen explains how most miss the dynamic aspects of Phillips’ observations – it’s the speed of change that counts, not a snapshot of employment levels at any particular time. Her also considered the changes in the price of inputs. On that basis, with unemployment rapidly falling and the price of imports rapidly rising, the Phillip’s curve has never been more relevant. So, does it tell us what happens next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stagflation is that worrying combination of rises prices in a stagnant economy. Central banks believe the answer is to push up interest rates, to magically reduce inflation and miraculously demand returns to normal. There’s a debate as to whether that can be done without kickstarting a recession. Some argue that might be the poison pill we have to take – pointing to when Paul Volcker at the US Federal Reserve pushed interest rates as high as 21.5% , leading to recession, but ultimately seeing economic growth return. Steve Keen says this time, it’s different. And we can’t assume the inflation cycle is as transient as many politicians, economists and central bankers believe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BP made $12.8 billion profit last year, $4.1 billion on that in the fourth quarter. In the first three months of this year Shell’s profits reached $9.1 billion. Meanwhile pensioners and low-income families are struggling to keep their houses warm, as high energy prices add to the inflation squeeze being felt with food and other household essentials. Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen whether this all points to the need for a windfall tax on energy companies who are enjoying massive profits through no-action on their part. And should it be a one-off initiative, or is this time to rethink how we tax these companies in a way that will engender investment in renewables? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The supply chain disruption from COVID, and the imperialist ambitions of Vladimir Putin have demonstrated, more than ever, the need for nations – or at least neighbouring groups of friendly nations – to be self sufficient in food and energy. Will we find the world returning to a spit between the West, autocracies and developing nations? Can each group survive without the others? Prof Steve Keen tells Phil Dobbie that we will still be reliant on autocratic regimes for mineral resources, and the world really needs to come together to tackle climate change. Even if that’s a pipedream we at last need a plan for how we manage the world’s resources and ensure we have a reliable source of food and energy, without kowtowing to despotic regimes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Property expert Russell Quirk maintains that housing will always be a good investment and prices will, in the long run, always go up. Perhaps this year inflation will rise faster, so in real terms prices may dip, but in the long run, he reckons, the direction will always be north. Prof Steve Keen on the other hand, maintains that, at some point, things will rapidly head south. Why? Because banks are offering loans through the creation of new money, which makes it easier for them to meet consumer demand, irrespective of how realistic house prices are. And they get locked into a feedback loop, where valuations are based on previous valuations. Your house is worth more because all the other houses around you are worth more. This, recons Steve, will come unstuck, possibly in a big way. He says we don’t accept it because it’s not happened in recent history. Just as we didn’t expect a pandemic because we hadn’t seen one like it for 100 years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK the Chancellor’s wife Akshata Murty was in the news a couple of weeks ago when it was revealed that she was claiming non-domicile status in the UK, so most of her income from her shareholding in dad’s company in India could be taxed over there at a much lower rate. The issue for many was that she wasn’t paying her fair share of tax. But does her wealth present a bigger problem. This week Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen whether Akshata Murty is an example of the rentier class, who make money from having money. And does that necessarily mean the money is used less well than if it was in the hands of good old-fashioned capitalists? Or is it all just a bit of jealousy, because we don’t have wealthy parents? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Economists like to think that there’s an equilibrium that the economy is either briefly moving away from or heading back to, and it’s all explained in those simple models we did at school. Those were mostly microeconomic models, of course, that are somehow magically interpreted at the mac level. Or there are more complex mathematical models that reflect only a tiny slice of the bigger picture. But didn’t Sonnenschein–Mantel–Debreu theorem debunk that? This week Prof Steve Keen tells Phil Dobbie that even their work ignored a fundamental feedback loop which clearly demonstrates that equilibrium is fantasy land.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The inflation genie is out of the bottle. Can we get it back in there before it does too much damage? Central banks are trying to tackle it by racing each other to put up interest rates, possibly to levels we haven’t seen in years, despite the fact we’re all leveraged to the hilt with our mortgages. Can that be done without causing a recession? More to the point, does monetary policy actually do what central bankers think it will? On this week’s Debunking Economics podcast Steve Keen tells Phil Dobbie that its up to governments, not banks, to bring inflation down. Instead, it seems, everyone is doing exactly the wrong thing! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Energy prices are going through the roof. They were before Ukraine erupted, but with Russia the world’s second biggest producer of natural gas, and Iran in third place, it seems we are destined to get our gas from trouble spots, and pay for the price for it. But Steve Keen says we have to get used to the idea that resources are no longer plentiful and rising prices from scarcity are becoming a fact of life. Phil Dobbie asks if there is anything that can be done to prevent an energy crisis akin to what we experienced in the seventies. The difference then, of course, that the issue was relatively short term. Now, its part of a major transition, escalated by COVID and geopolitics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The EU has talked about issuing new bonds to protect its eastern borders against Russia and to prepare Europe for a future without reliance on Russian oil and gas. Normally bonds are issued by individual countries. If the ECB felt the need to intervene it would buy up those bonds, normally proportional to the size of the member countries. Even during the pandemic, their pandemic emergency purchase program saw them buying up sovereign bonds from member countries. Could this time be different?Is there a Europe wide need that could see the EU operating a centralised budget to, for example, fund a European army? Well, they have already started down that track with the issuance of green bonds this year. How does it work? How does it create a budget through debt issuance, and see that money move to suppliers in individual European nations? The answer is, its complicated but not insurmountable. The question is, is a centralised EU budget, supplementing each countries own budgets, a good thing or a bad thing?Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen about what could be a new direction for the EU, where it wields money for pan-European spending projects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The war in Ukraine looks set to continue for a long time. A 90 minute high-level meeting between the two parties, mediated in Turkey, got nowhere today. Meanwhile, the west is imposing more and more sanctions on Russia. Putin spoke calmy at a press conference today about how they will manage these increasing constraints on trade and finance, making out it wasn’t really a big deal. So will they make their way through it, or will these sanctions be the nail in the coffin for Putin’s plan? Or will they just make him more resolute? Will he start to attract the support from his people that Hitler gathered between the two world wars? Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen, asking whether we are taking the right approach on this. Whatever the outcome, Steve reckons we should prepare for more unrest in the future, as demand for minerals heightens and the world is split between those with them, and those without them. Could this resource split and an increasing sense of protectionism become a deadly combination? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most people agree that Rishi Sunak is crazy to introduce new taxes on the British public when inflation is compromising living standards and the Bank of England is lifting rates and pushing up the cost of mortgages. Now a war in Europe is pushing the cost of fuel ever higher. But the Chancellors argument is that the government has to pay back the money it borrowed during the pandemic. If it did, it would take decades. But, as Steve Keen explains in this week’s podcast, Modern Monetary Theory suggests the money doesn’t need to be paid back, and tax is really on a mechanism for controlling the money supply. Phil Dobbie looks at some of the crazy taxes that have been introduced, many to do with changing behaviour or distributing wealth. Both noble aims, but the execution might have left something to be desired. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It seems Putin will not be satisfied until he has a puppet leader installed in Ukraine to replace what he’s called their Nazi leader – he’s Jewish by the way. This week Phil Dobbie talks to Steve Keen about Russia’s motivations for the invasion. None of them justify the action, but a bit of history helps explain the animosity between the east and the west. Meanwhile, the approach of sanctions will hurt countries depend on Russian resources, and will they have any impact on the crazed Russian leader? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A society riddled with debt is a society that is reluctant or unable to spend. A lot of that debt has now found its way into housing, with mortgages higher than ever. That’s money we’re using to pay off our home loan that we could be spending keeping the economy moving. In short, its slowing the speed at which money circulates. So, how do we fix it? The answer is get rid of the debt. And Steve Keen has a cunning plan. A monetary reset. How would it work? Phil Dobbie explores the idea in detail with Steve on today’s Debunking Economics podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last year Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England Governor, spoke optimistically about how the UK economy would bounce back because so many people had stashed away money in their savings accounts. But, at the same time, we also saw rising levels of debt. This week, Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen how you can have rising savings and debt at the same time. If you have spare cash sitting in your bank account, wouldn’t you use it to pay off your debts. The fact that people are not doing that tells us something about the state of the economy. And where did all these extra savings come from anyway? And why did they never materialise into a massive spending splurge like the Governor had predicted? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

House prices in Australia continue to rise. According to Domain’s House Price Index, prices in Sydney have risen by a third in the last year, to a median value of $1.6 million. Housing affordability has never been a bigger issue, but how do you bring prices down when two thirds of the population are owner occupiers. That’s a question Phil Dobbie puts to Steve Keen, as he explains his two-pronged approach to containing house prices – first, limiting the value of loans to a multiple of the rental value of a property and, secondly, a big reset, which sees debt repaid and bonds issued to those who don’t currently own a property. Would it work, and could it be explained in a way that the voting population will understand? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Central banks control the interest rate through the decisions of their various monetary committees. Almost all of them are set to raise rates multiple times this year. But what do they basis this decision on? These days it is related to the rate of inflation, but to what extent is that driven by the amount of money in circulation. Can the central bank control both? And what about the velocity of money? All questions Phil Dobbie puts to Steve Keen in this week’s Debunking Economics podcast, along with the question, what if we didn’t change interest rates at all? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the surprises as we emerge from the worst of COVID (hopefully) is what’s being called the Great Resignation. Even though employment levels in most countries remain below pre-pandemic levels, that’s not stopping those who hung onto their jobs through the crisis from leaving in their droves. So, what’s driving this trend. Prof Steve Keen suggests it’s a “kick in the balls to the gig economy”. But what happens next? Already central banks are lifting interest rates, fearful of rising wages pushing inflation higher. How is that going to work out. Tune in to this free half-hour podcast as Phil Dobbie talks to Steve about what’s driving this dramatic shift in the labour market.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Even the most ardent supporters of small government will agree there are times when governments need to offer subsidies to companies and industries. Paying for the furloughing of workers during the pandemic was one unavoidable example. But are their times when subsidies can distort the economy in unforeseen ways. The support for the food industry that promotes livestock over plant-based diets is a prime example. This week Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen whether there a better way of supporting industries without complex subsidies? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Around the world we have seen the size of the money supply increasing considerably over recent decades, but none more so than the last couple of years, as governments spend like crazy to support people during lockdowns and illness. In the UK the amount of money in circulation has increased by almost £200 billion. Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen if there are consequences of growing the monetary base so quickly, and what’s the role of the central banks in controlling this supply?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are a lot of people questioning the direction of conventional economics, yet, even after the biggest spending splurges ever made by governments outside wartime, there is still a lot of talk about fiscal conservatism, paying back the debt and balancing the budget. But contrarian voices question whether that is the best way forward, whilst others are seeing an end to fiat money and are buying into alternatives, like Bitcoin. In this free half hour podcast Phil Dobbie and Steve Keen look at those questioning the way our economies run and the contrarians who believe there’s a better way; contrarians who don’t agree with each other. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is a negative trade balance such a bad thing? Some countries with a bit deficit seem to be doing okay, like American, even the UK to an extent, whereas others, like Japan have a trade surplus and a economy on the road to nowhere. This week Phil Dobbie and Steve Keen discuss how important is a trade balance for the overall good of an economy. And what about jobs? Donald Trump was concerned his trade deficit was giving away jobs to China. Was he right about that? And what about the strange suggestion from Modern Monetary Theorists that exports are bad, imports are good for an economy? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Economics works so well because we al have perfect information about everything, all the time. Right? We choose products at the best price because we know all about all products and their prices, so we can make the best choice. That means we can all pursue our own self-interests to provide the most efficient outcome for any situation. Huh? This week Phil Dobbie talks to Steve Keen about the myth of perfect information and the equally as convoluted theories around asymmetric information. But are we getting closer to this supposed information utopia, thanks to the internet? Or is it the supplier who is gathering perfect information, about us? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If capitalism is driving everyone to make a profit – and we all save a bit of that profit and therefore accumulate more wealth, does that mean everyone can be better off, if we all run profitable businesses? Does that mean Boris Johnson’s idea of levelling up is a good one? Or is there a constraint on how much wealth there is. Today on the Debunking Economics podcast Steve Keen explains to Phil Dobbie the difference between stocks and flows. Profits are flows, whereas accumulated wealth is a stock. He shows how everyone cold theoretically create a profit, but if you increase your wealth you are doing so at the expense of someone else. Once again, it’s easier to explain if you understand double entry bookkeeping. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During his Tory Party conference speech, Boris Johnson said that he remembers something about Wilfredo Pareto, in the “cobwedded attic of (his) memories”. In his mind, Pareto was all about levelling up – that you can improve the lot of some of society without anyone else losing out. But Pareto is most famous for the 80:20 rule – at the time he observed that 80 percent of land in Italy was owned by 20 percent of the population. It’d be worse than that today. For example, in England half of all land is owned by less than one percent of the population. So, can you really expect to be able to improve the wealth of everyone? If the poor suddenly get rich, won’t they demand the swathes of land that is the domain of the uber-wealthy? Plus, doesn’t climate change place a ceiling on growth that puts paid to Jonson’s ambitions. Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen, and asks whether levelling up is a vain hope, and whether Pareto ever argued the case in the first place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Trump believed that China was manipulating its currency to get an unfair advantage against the US. This week Professor Steve Keen explains why manipulating currencies isn’t that easy – and the US will always be at a disadvantage when it comes to competing for international trade. He talks with Phil Dobbie about why countries moved to floating exchange rates, and how the system would have worked better if people had listened to Keynes. Meanwhile, it’s helped create an industry that transacts almost $2.5 quadrillion each year! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The world’s leaders are getting together in the UK at the end of this month to discuss how to tackle climate change. Meanwhile, fuel prices are rising higher and higher, and increasing talk of inflation. Prices are rising because, quite simply, demand is rising but supply is still constrained. Gas supplies in Europe are dependent on Russia and renewable energy has been held back by low winds and other weather-related influences. Now, to meet demand, countries are stepping up their use of fossil fuels. Energy supplies “at any costs” has been the approach in China. Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen whether we’ll ever reach renewable targets whilst the energy industry is in private hands. In the UK how much of the problem we now face is the result of Thatcher-era philosophies that believed competition would yield greater amounts of lower priced energy? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Governments have been spending their way through the pandemic, so what happens to that money? Regular listeners will understand how this spending gets added to the money supply, but then what? Steve Keen looks at the impact of government spending on the private sector, and Phil Dobbie asks if this is a prime example of modern monetary theory in action? Could the COVID years be used as the case study of how MMT works? There’s also some discussion on whether government handouts, like furlough payments, were the best approach. Would tax cuts have had the same impact? And what’s the relationship between an increase in the supply of money and the velocity of that money? If the government is injecting cash but we’re not spending it, is it really having the impact governments had hoped for? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steve Keen is a man of many surprises. His latest is that he is going to stand for the Senate in New South Wales. He’s packing his bags and heading back to Australia, for an election that will be held early next year. He’ll be one of six senate candidates in NSW for the New Liberals. So, is this a good move? From an academic to a politician, from developing and challenging theories to creating soundbites for TV? Phil Dobbie asks why he is making the move, what are his chances and what does the New Liberal party stand for. And could this spell the end of our weekly podcasts? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

COVID is causing supply disruptions the world over, evidenced by disruptions to supply chains and rising producer prices and consumer prices. Central banks are quick to suggest this is a temporary measure, and inflation will start to fall as quickly as it rose. And yet, they are also making noises about raising interest rates, as a way of controlling inflation. Last week the Bank of England was hinting that could happen sooner, rather than later, even as they implement quantitative easing. Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen whether there’s any merit in lifting rates in an economy struggling to recover. And what if inflation is here to stay? What policy can work for an economy where supply falls well short of demand and prices rise beyond the means of many lower paid workers? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Central banks around the world are at different stages of how they supposedly deal with the COVId-19 crisis. Most are implementing some form of QE, but many are now reducing their purchases, and some are even lifting interest rates. How can they all have a different monetary approach to dealing with the same crisis? And can any claim to have been operating independently, buying up the increasing amount of debt issued by their respective governments? With the big four central banks (the BoE, the ECB, the Fed and the BoJ) having amassed $24.5 trillion in government bonds, does anybody really expect they will ever get their balance sheets back down to zero? If not, have they really embarked on MMT but are afraid to admit it? Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whilst the UK still lumbers under high COVID infection rates, and the economic recovery stalls, with GDP growth now at a trickle, the government wants to raise taxes. Even if you believed it was a fair tax, is next April – when the rise kicks in – the time to be taking spending money out of people’s pockets. But, as Phil Dobbie discusses with Prof Steve Keen, this is far from a fair tax. Those earning over £50,000 per year will pay disproportionately less than those on lower incomes. The money will help to fund the health care sector which is predominantly serviced by for-profit companies, some of whom are paying their senior staff very handsome salaries. We’re told we can expect more tax rises soon as the Tory government scrambles to reduce its debt burden. All of this ignores, of course, the ideas of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) that suggests governments can overspend if the excess money is used to create jobs. Even if you ignored MMT, doesn’t the issue of caring for the elderly, raise the obvious question about inheritance tax. Isn’t it time to tackle Britain’s problem of hereditary wealth? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.