The Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to further develop “Minsky”, my dynamic monetary simulation program, has been launched. The immediate objective is to raise $50,000, which will enable the current version of Minsky to be completed. The ultimate goal is to raise $1 million or more to fully develop the concept.
Click here for the Kickstarter campaign. If you have appreciated my work over the last seven years to warn about the economic crisis, to develop an approach to macroeconomics that can understand why it happened, and to develop policies that might help end it, the please show this by making a pledge.
Let your network know about it too. The more people who kick in, the better.
Some key facts about Kickstarter campaigns:
- They run only for a set number of days: this campaign will end on March 18. If you don’t give by then, you can’t give later. So if you want to help, pledge now.
- Pledging early is a very good idea. The faster a project reaches its target, generally the more it raises–there is a “bandwagon” effect amongst Kickstarters. Also, a fast-rising project tends to get selected by Kickstarter staff as a “Staff Pick”. That gives it more publicity and raises yet more funds.
- Pledging is easy. You choose the amount you want to pledge and click. That takes you to an Amazon page where, if you’ve ever bought anything from them beforehand, you already have an account. Confirm the pledge there, and that’s it. If the project gets its target amount of money or more, then at the end of the campaign (some time around March 20) the amount you pledge will be transferred to the Minsky project by Amazon (minus about 10% representing Amazon and Kickstarter’s fees).
I have great hopes for this program. As a teaching tool, I hope it will excite young economists and entice them away from the static, equilibrium-fixated, barter model they are currently taught in Universities around the world. As a research tool, I hope it will develop in the same way that Lorenz’s model of fluid dynamics did, from a “toy” model to the basis of modern weather forecasting. The economics could never be forecast as the weather is, obviously. But explicitly acknowledging the complex, monetary, non-equilibrium nature of the economy has to make for a better economics.
Help me realize those hopes by providing the funding needed to take the program to its full potential. Kickstart Minsky Now!
