Debunking Economics - the podcast

Boris Johnson has talked frequently about levelling up the UK economy – bringing the wealth of the more deprived areas so they are closer to the wealth of the more affluent areas, without the affluent folks having to pay for it. This week, Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen whether that’s possible, or do you have to level down – take some of the wealth from the high earners to distribute to the more depr...

Inevitably, as governments spend more and more money to help their economies navigate through the COVID-19 crisis, the questions inevitably being asked is, how will all this be paid for? The assumption is, either governments will have to cut back on spending, or taxes will have to be increased. Few economists or politicians suggest that the debt is never repaid. In this edition of the Debunking Ec...

Donald Trump is pushing ahead with his protectionist agenda, and possibly with good reason. There were over 17 million manufacturing jobs in the US in 2000, in the 10 years that followed, China joined the WTO and the US lost about a third of those jobs. In this edition of the Debunking Economics podcast Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen whether protectionism is valid in this day and age. What of th...

Furloughed workers, self-employed grant schemes, increased unemployment benefits, low interest loans, quantitative easing – governments and central banks are pulling out all the stops to try and offset the economic consequences of COVID-19. So who is doing it well? Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen to evaluate some of the programs implemented around the world – which ones are effective, which help...

The world is facing the greatest economic downturn of our time. In the US at least 15 million more people are unemployed than just a few months ago. There are fears of a second wave and, even if it is contained and a cure is found, the chief scientist at the World Health Organisation is now saying it could take up to five years to get the virus under control. Meanwhile, as governments inject trill...

The US might not be in a great place right now, with the riots, a narcissistic president and the COVID-19 virus taking a long time to slow down, yet, for generations it has been the country the world looks to for opportunity and innovation. Look at almost all the world’s newest big companies – Microsoft, Apple, Google, Twitter, Tesla – and they all hail from America. It claims a huge proporti...

Mental health is an issue that impacts a growing number of people, not helped by the COVID 19 lockdown. Divya Dhami, an undergraduate student from the University of British Columbia, says the economy is paying for it in terms of reduced productivity. Money investied in fixing the problem would be recovered through increased GDP. But isn’t GDP part of the problem? Phil Dobbie asks whether the wellb...

Governments everywhere have been pledging billions of dollars – in some cases, trillions – to help their economies navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of it has been spent supporting businesses and helping to sustain people’s income. But what happens when we come out the other side. Quantitative easing is now widespread, but there’s still an expectation those central ban purchases will be...

There are all sorts of theories on why there is such a huge discrepancy in income in society, and why it differs from one country to the next. For example, why does the USA have a far worse Gini index (41.4) than Japan (32.9)? Whilst there’s been lots of debate around education, ability, inheritance and opportunity, Blair Fix at York University in Toronto, has concluded that society’s hierarchy is...

Economists tend to see income as related to the value labour adds to a product or service. By that rationale, during this crisis, nurses helping save lives contribute only a fraction of the CEOs who are watching their companies fall apart. Or is something else driving inequality? It’s largely the growth of the rentier class, says Steve Keen. Phil Dobbie asks whether technology could also be making...

Companies and governments are racking up massive debts to cope with the impact of COVID-19. Apart from grants for a month or two of partial salaries, the approach has largely been to extend easy short-term credit to those people and businesses struggling to survive. We can expect, once an initial amnesty on repayments has passed, many of these companies will go to the wall, adding to the massive p...

In some parts of the world politicians, investors, business leaders and economists are behaving as though the Corona virus is almost eradicated. There are talks of easing up on restrictions, even though it’s only through the lockdown that infection rates have been held back. If, instead, we believe epidemiologists, who tell us this thing is with us for some time, what will life be like on the othe...

He has been called the ‘Father of Economics’, but how much of what he talked about and wrote about has stood the test of time? Have we fully understood his ideas of free trade and the invisible hand? And why is a man, who cared so much about the plight of the poor, now seen as the poster boy for the right and those with money to protect? Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen about the work of Adam...

Billions of dollars are being pumped into economies the world over to protect economies from COVID-19. Much of it comes in the form of government fiscal stimulus, funded through bond issuance. Some of it involves businesses taking up further debt themselves, through low interest loans. Nobody seems to be pursuing helicopter money and while there’s some dabbling on the idea of universal basic incom...

Putting the Corona virus aside for a moment, on this week’s Debunking Economics podcast Phil Dobbie talks to Steve Keen about our use of energy. He raises the dilemma of energy prices – if they are too low, usage goes up, expanding our ecological footprint. If you try to counter that by artificially inflating prices, it’s the poor who suffer – as evidenced by the riots in Paris. So, how do we limi...

The EU is debating whether funding to protect economies from the ravages of the Corona virus should come from centrally issued Corona Bonds, or from country-specific debt. In short, should Italy and Spain pay the price of their own misfortune and be landed with the bill to pay off for years to come, whilst totally sovereign nations, like the US, simply issue bonds which can be paid for by the cent...

Italy is getting swamped in corona virus cases, whilst China claims the only new infections now come from visitors from overseas. Donald Trump has gone from calling it a hoax to warning that 200 thousand Americans dying will be the best possible scenario. The UK has seen its death rate step up again today, whilst Germany has seen relatively few deaths and in Sweden folks are still eating out at re...

How did we allow the spread of the Caronavirus happen? Why were governments and health services so unprepared? In this week’s Debunking Economics podcast entrepreneur and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer joins Phil Dobbie and Steve Keen to look at the inevitability of this crisis. Nick says it’s all down to the preoccupation with small government. How do we solve it? Massive government spending and...

One of the questions we might be left with after the virus has left us, will be have we become too reliant on international supply chains. Another might be, are we just too reliant on stuff? If we are to look after the planet do we need to lose our appetite for goods that we keep for a short while then throw away. Why not fix them? Is it time for a repair-based economy? And if so, how do you imple...

Central banks have cut interest rates, some governments have introduced stimulus measures. But still the disease spreads and livelihoods are put at risk. In today’s extra (free) edition of the Debunking Economics podcast Prof Steve Keen argues that stimulus measures are nowhere near enough, and serious sums of helicopter money need to be added to everyone’s bank account. He has been arguing for so...

We know what makes up the measure of gross domestic product – it is increases in private or government spending, increases in investment or an improvement in your balance of trade. But are those factors all driven by improvements in productivity driven by technology gains? This week on the Debunking Economics podcast Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen whether technology improvements are the onl...

The manufacturing numbers from China at the weekend showed how hard the sector was hit by the lockdown in Wuhan and neighbouring districts. In today’s Debunking Economics podcast Prof Steve Keen says the rest of the world needs to prepare for a similar strategy, that will see production dive as workers don’t show up and consumers don’t go shopping. It seems likely that central banks will cut inter...

The US government is now running a debt exceeding $23 trillion. When Donald Trump cam rot office it was already at $18.2 trillion. Regular Debunking Economics listeners will know the ability to rack up debt is a privilege for running the world’s reserve currency. There will always be demand for US dollar bonds. But why do so many countries seek US bonds, and how long can this imbalance contin...

The multiplier is a basic concept of economics. If you come across some money and spend it, the person you spend it with then spends a proportion of it again, the recipient of which also spends some of it. In this week’s podcast Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen about how savings and taxation influence the multiplier, including how different sectors influence the speed of the multiplier. Plus,...

Central banks started life as clearing houses and have evolved into instruments to, supposedly, protect the economy. But with interest rates at all time lows, often in the negative, have they gone as far as they can go? And how can they control the economy when governments can implement a fiscal approach at odds with monetary policy. Is it time to consider that Central Banks have a fuller role in...