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.

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.

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.

If you’re look­ing for my lat­est work, please click here to go to my Patre­on site. This site is main­tained for his­tor­i­cal rea­sons only.

I main­tain this site for his­tor­i­cal rea­sons only. If you’re look­ing for my lat­est work, please go to https://www.patreon.com/profstevekeen.

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.

Dr. Keen,

I am won­der­ing if you have ever seri­ous­ly con­sid­ered issuance of Gisel­lian cur­ren­cy for coun­tries fac­ing unplayable debt (all of them, as far as I know).

The scheme I am imag­in­ing would have these govts pay­ing off bonds due with G‑currency. Bond­hold­ers would then, ASAP, spend it on real items in the econ­o­my, where it would even­tu­al­ly end up as wages, where work­ers would spend it, ASAP, on tax­es and con­sumer goods.

The demur­rage, say 12%/year (= 12 x 1% stamps)  would give this cur­ren­cy an annu­al veloc­i­ty of at least 12 since any hold­er of the cur­ren­cy would want to spend it before each month-end tax stamp would be due.