For this post in PDF, click here: CfESI Members; DebtWatch Members; Signup CfESI; Signup Debtwatch
Chris Joye’s reply to my last post on housing provides a neat segue into the broader topic of why I entered the public debate on economics in the first place. It was because in December 2005, I became convinced that a major global economic crisis wasabout to hit. I felt that someone had to raise the alarm, and that—at least in Australia—I was probably that somebody.
A number of new members have asked how to change their password after logging on to the site. The process is relatively simple, but it’s easy to miss the menu since it’s so subtle.
When you log in, a menu with two items in it–your blog name and the word “Dashboard”–appear at the top of the page, on the same line as the Search window but at the left hand end of the screen:
Click on your name and this drop down will appear:
Choose “Edit My Profile” and you get this management screen:
A blog member has pointed out that the Gustave Tuck theatre is actually in University College London, not the LSE.
The second edition of Debunking Economics will be launched at the University College London on October 4th, from 6–8pm.
The address is University College London, Gower St, WC1E 6BT London. Two map references are:
and
http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=529573&y=182293&z=0&sv=51.524699,-0.13366&st=7&mapp=map.srf
The second edition of Debunking Economics will be launched at the University College London on October 4th, from 6–8pm.
The address is University College London, Gower St, WC1E 6BT London:
The venue is the Gustave Tuck lecture theatre in the Wilkins Building (navigation instructions here).
If you are going to attend, please post a comment here. At a later stage, I may be able to link to a bookings page (attendance is free–this will just be to keep track of numbers), but for now this is the best way to let the organisers know how many people to expect.
Debtwatch has been operating since March 2007, and in that time it has grown from a simple means to get my monthly newsletter out into a major alternative economics website.
The workload to maintain the site has become enormous: I have to write posts, administer this site, participate in its active discussions (and keep them civil), all on top of my “day job” as a Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Western Sydney. And I have to continue developing the research that made Debtwatch possible in the first place: my efforts since 1997 to turn Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis into a fully fledged macroeconomic model, as an alternative to the various delusional Neoclassical models that have dominated economics ever since John Hicks penned his utterly misleading caricature of Keynes’s General Theory back in 1936.
The Fractal Markets Hypothesis and the Inefficient Markets Hypothesis are two of several attempts to provide a realistic theory of how finance markets actually behave. In this first half of the lecture, I explain what fractals aew, and discuss their basic characteristics.
In the second half of the lecture, I outline the Fractal Markets Hypothesis and the Inefficient Markets Hypothesis (IEH). The IEH suggests precisely the opposite investment strategy to the EMH on how to maximize returns on the stock market: invest in low volatility, high Book to Market stocks.
The videos can be watched by anyone; Powerpoint files can be downloaded by members of the Center for Economic Stability
As noted in Announcing the Center for Economic Stability AGM, the first Annual General Meeting of the Centre for Economic Stability Incorporated will be held on Wednesday September 7th at 6–9pm at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street Sydney, Australia, from 6–9pm.
I need to have some idea of numbers for catering and room booking purposes. I know that most of the 12,000 subscribers to and 60,000+ monthly readers of this blog don’t live in Sydney or surrounds, but I would appreciate it if as many as are able to attend do so, and help get CfESI rolling.
Click here for this post in PDF
Click here for the data in this post
As I’ve noted in earlier posts, the concept of the Credit Accelerator is still a work in progress. A major objective is to be able to use monthly data and remove the noise that generates, but for now I’m working with the change in the change in debt over a year, divided by GDP at the midpoint of that year. In order to be able to still use the latest monthly debt data from Australia (and quarterly from the USA), I’ve revised the formula to “freeze” the last available value of GDP six months in advance of the last data for debt. This gives an accurate measure of the change in the change in debt, but divides it by a GDP figure that will later need revision.
Click here for this post in PDF
Reality came to Reality TV in Australia last week, when 3 of the 4 properties in the much-hyped “Flip that House” program The Block failed to sell at their nationally televised auction. A 400 person live audience, watched by over 3 million TV viewers, couldn’t entice more than one person to part with money rather than eyeballs. As the SMH observed:
Whatever the lure of a celebrity house, the would-be buyers in Fitzroy Town Hall were just as jittery as the would-be buyers at any other auction in recent weeks. (“Auction failure shocks The Block”, SMH August 22)
