I first met Yanis Varoufakis when he was a senior lecturer (the 3rdstep in the 5‑tiered Australian system, equivalent to a Professor in the USA) at Sydney University in the late 1980s, and I was a tutor (the 1st step) at the University of New South Wales. We’ve been friends ever since, and now he has become globally prominent as the Finance Minister of the most troubled and high profile economy on the planet, Greece.
About 40 years ago, one of Maggie Thatcher’s chief advisors remarked that he wouldn’t be satisfied when the Conservative Party was in government: he would only be happy when there were two conservative parties vying for office.
He got his wish of course.
The polls were right: Greece did elect Syriza, the left-wing coalition party (its name is actually a Greek acronym for “Coalition of the Radical Left”), bringing to power the first staunchly anti-austerity party in the EU, and the first element in their policy document is to “Write-off the greater part of public debt”.
That is likely to lead to some fractious negotiations with the EU, and possibly even a messy exit from the Euro. Before that happens, there will be some messy commentary in the media as well, and I fully expect most commentators to take a line like that in my title.
I was interviewed by Gordon Long for the Financial Repression website last week. The video is below; a brief summary of our discussion is posted on the Financial Repression website and reproduced below.
PROF. STEVE KEEN TALKS
FINANCIAL REPRESSION
THE ART OF GETTING AN EDUCATION IN ECONOMICS
Professor Steve Keen has found that top flight universities are dominated by very narrow, doctrinaire teaching. This stylized view has resulted in critics of this view only getting jobs in low ranking university. With pride Steve Keen puts his latest university in that camp. “If you want a good education in Economics, you don’t go to a good university. The wider range of thought and diverse analytics is found at the lower ranking university. Kingston University is one of those classic university!”
I was interviewed by Lelde Smits for the Finance News Network on my recent trip back to Sydney. Below is the beginning of the transcript; you can read the rest by clicking on this link. Or click below to watch the interview with Lelde.
Transcript of Finance News Network interview with Kingston University Head of Economics, Politics and History, Dr Steve Keen
Lelde Smits: Hello, I’m Lelde Smits for the Finance News Network and joining me from London’s Kingston University is Head of Economics, Politics and History, Dr Steve Keen. Steve, welcome back to Sydney and to FNN.
University of Greenwich and Kingston University are jointly organizing a series of lectures in advanced macroeconomics based on a political economy approach combining institutionalist, Keynesian and Marxist traditions. The lecture series builds on the research expertise of staff in political economy at both universities, and is designed originally for our PhD students; however we welcome PhD students from other universities or Masters students, who wish to explore more advanced topics. The lectures assume knowledge of core concepts in macroeconomics at the Masters level. Each day has two lectures. A brief description of each lecture and an indicative reading list can be found in the link to each lecture below. The location of the lectures alternate between the two universities. Attendance is free and there is no registration requirement.
In the otherwise forgettable movie Cocktail, when Tom Cruise’s character Brian Flanagan abruptly splits with his date Bonnie, she pleads with him not to let their relationship end badly. He replies “everything ends badly: otherwise it wouldn’t end.”
The turmoil in foreign exchange markets caused by Switzerland’s abrupt ending of its Euro peg may be such a bad moment for the Euro—and it comes figuratively moments before another likely bad moment, the elections in Greece on January 25th that will in all likelihood bring the anti-austerity party Syriza to power. Will the Euro, like Flanagan’s relationship in Cocktail, end badly—and abruptly—soon?
The British election campaign has begun, and Prime Minister David Cameron is running with the slogan that his Conservative Party will deliver “A Britain living within its means” by running a surplus on day-to-day government spending by 2017/18. It is, as the UK Telegraph noted, hardly an inspiring slogan. But it is one that resonates with voters, because it sounds like the way they would like to manage their own households. And a household budget—whether you balance yours or not—is something we can all understand. If a household spends less than it earns, it can save money, or pay down its debt, or both. So it has to be good if a country does the same thing, right?
Some months ago, Jesse Columbo approached me about writing an online column for Forbes Magazine. That seemed a better fit for me than the Australian-oriented Business Spectator, where I have been blogging for the last few years, so I decided to make the move. I’ll soon post my first column at this location. I’ll follow the same approach with this blog as before, which is to post a teaser to a story here and then link through to the Forbes article. I’ll also continue to post videos and interviews directly here, as I do now.
I’m now doing a regular spot with Simon Rose on Share Radio, a new internet radio station dedicated to economic and financial issues.
Simon Rose, Share Radio’s evening host.
To listen to our latest conversation–covering Greece, austerity, and why running a sustained government surplus is a great way to cause a future economic crisis, click on the play button below.
