I forgot to post my presentation file in the first version of this post. I’ve since edited it, but I know that a lot of people using RSS feeds would not notice the change. So here is the presentation that I gave at that talk to UNEP in November:
A PDF version
The United Nations Environment Program did a very unusual and far-sighted thing last year: it asked the CSIRO to produce a version of its biophysical model of the Australian economy for developing countries, and to pair that with an economic model which had to be non-equilibrium in nature.
The Stocks and Flows Resource Modelling team at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, which maintains this biophysical model, approached me in July to see whether I would be willing to attempt the development of that nonequilibrium multisectoral economic model.
The US Senate should not reappoint Ben Bernanke. As Obama’s reaction to the loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat showed, real change in policy only occurs after political scalps have been taken. An economic scalp of this scale might finally shake America from the unsustainable path that reckless and feckless Federal Reserve behavior set it on over 20 years ago.
Some may think this would be an unfair outcome for Bernanke. It is not. There are solid economic reasons why Bernanke should pay the ultimate political price.
A number of readers have complained that the video of my talk at Google took up too much bandwidth, resulting in “jerky” vision. Here are the same two files in a somewhat lower quality compression–half the size of the original files.
Steve Keen’s Debtwatch Podcast Steve Keen’s Debtwatch PodcastAs one viewer noted, it is also feasible to download the files to your PC and view there without bandwidth problems during playback.
Google runs a regular seminar series on topical issues, which I spoke at last week. There was a substantial audience (see the quick scan of the audience below) and Google’s staff lived up to their hyper-intelligent and hyper-engaged reputation.
Steve Keen’s Debtwatch PodcastI gave a presentation that combined my standard talk on debt and Minsky, with some exposition of the Circuit and Minsky models, befitting of an audience to whom simulation is no big deal–unlike economics conferences where such approaches are still fringe activities.
The Real World Economics Review Blog–which is run by PAECON, the “Protest against Autistic ECONomics”–has just launched “The Ignoble Prize for Economics”.
The intent is to select by popular vote the “three economists who contributed most to enabling the Global Financial Collapse (GFC)”.
Nominations are now open, and anyone can nominate up to three individuals by visiting this page and leaving a comment.
As it is currently stated, the prize is open for posthumous award; this may change if there are simply too many dead economists who get a guernsey.
This is often treated as a “how long is a piece of string?” question, but The Economist has performed a great public service by allowing an easy comparison of the length of this piece of string across many countries and over time.
Check it out yourself. For Australian readers, house prices today are almost 2.5 times what they were in real terms in 1986; and our price bubble (in CPI-deflated terms) turns out to be smaller than some countries (notably Belgium’s) but larger than the USA’s and UK’s.
I recommend that you finish the year with a look at the News from 1930 blog, which is providing some “year in review” commentary on 1930 now–including these details on the market highs and lows. Obviously some things were much worse in 1930 than today–notably industrial production and the stock market:
Market highs and lows:
Dow industrial average high of 294.07 Apr. 17; low 157.51 Dec. 16. Rail average high of 157.94 Mar. 29; low 91.65 Dec. 16. Utility average high of 108.62 Apr. 12; low 55.14 Dec. 16.
Last weekend’s Sunday Telegraph pointed out a new record for Australia: our ratio of household debt to GDP is now higher than the USA’s. I’ve written the following commentary on this dubious “gold medal” (or is it really lead?) for the ABC’s The Drum.
In all the self-congratulations over how Australia has managed to sidestep the GFC, an inconvenient truth has been overlooked: the crisis was caused by too much debt, and Australian households have had a stronger and longer love affair with debt than even the Americans.
I was recently interviewed by Eric Tavenier for the website Engineer.net, which is an engineer recruitment and job search service in the USA.
Eric was taken with my advocacy of what I called “Engineer Capitalists” (in contrast to the financial spivs who dominate business today in the USA) in my interview on The Keiser Report, and wanted me to elaborate for his audience. The interviews have been posted to YouTube (see below).
For Australian viewers, there was an interesting report in today’s Sunday Telegraph on the level of mortgage debt in Australia, which now exceeds 100% of our GDP–higher than America at 95.5%.
