Debunking Economics - the podcast

We often hear the argument that house prices have risen so much because there’s a lack of supply. Politicians argue that if more land was released to developers more homes would be built and the affordability issue would be fixed. Prof Steve Keen, meanwhile, has argued that it is the willingness of banks to offer massive mortgages that has pushed prices to high. In this podcast Phil Dobbie asks wh...

The Oxford Review of Economic Policy devoted its entire latest edition to rebuilding macroeconomic theory. That sounds like an acknowledgement that the theories that have guided the profession for decades might be flawed. Perhaps, you might think, it will explain why the global financial crisis happened, why growth has been so slow to pick up and why wages have stagnated. But, as Prof Steve Keen e...

Boris Johnson has, once again, argued that money saved in fees to the EU can be used to fund better healthcare in Britain. His argument assumes the government is run like a household budget, ignoring the ability to create money. Yet we are familiar with the idea of money creation, with central banks injecting millions, or billions in the US, into the economy through bond purchases. Phil Dobbie exp...

Migration is often blamed for unemployment. The fear that there are too many migrants stealing jobs has almost certainly helped with the rise of UKIP and the election of President Trump. But is there any value in this far right rhetoric, or is conventional economy theory right for once – that migrants create demand that facilitates more jobs and adds to the economy. And are we getting so lost in t...

The collapse of Carillion is down to poor management but, as Phil Dobbie discusses with Prof Steve Keen, it’s also down to a company that took risks because it was raking in so much money from the public sector. In this discussion they look at where you draw the line between government insourcing and outsourcing. The problem is, says Steve, governments have lost the expertise to know what to outso...

We rely on GDP to measure the wealth of a country and it’s rate of growth, but is it the most meaningful measure? Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen whether it’s an accurate measure of happiness, for example. And Steve suggests its an incomplete measure if it doesn’t consider the return on the energy invested to provide growth. So how should we really go about measuring the health of an economy. Hos...

The Austrian School of Economics has been around since the 1870s, when Carl Menger wrote the Principles of Economics. They were a response to the conventional economic thought that prevails today. Phil Dobbie asks Professor Steve Keen whether there are elements of the Austrian school that we should take seriously – surely anyone who challenges traditional economics is worth listening to. Hosted on...

President Trump is convinced that the high corporate tax rate in the US is damaging the prospects for domestic business and encouraging companies to hold their profits offshore. So will his plan to reduce the tax rate create the results he expects? Phil Dobbie talks to Professor Steve Keen about the role of tax in general, the influence of corporate tax and whether we can afford to get rid of it....

We often hear arguments that releasing land to foreign ownership is “selling the farm”. Similarly, foreign owned companies repatriate their profits rather than keeping profits within the local economy. Are these valid arguments? In this edition of the Debunking Economics podcast Phil Dobbie works through the pros and cons of foreign ownership with Professor Steve Keen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.c...

Professor Steve Keen has often spoken of the need for a debt jubilee. If households can write off their ever expanding, mortgage driven, debt, then we reduce the risk of asset bubbles and consumer spending drying up leading to recession or depression. But, Phil Dobbie asks, how would it work in practice? Has it been tried anywhere and what are the possible side effects? Hosted on Acast. See acast....

The UK government announced an industrial strategy this week to tackle the problem of weak productivity growth. Yet, as Prof Steve Keen discusses with Phil Dobbie, the issue isn’t one of investment, as much as who the beneficiaries are from money spent on equipment aimed at improving productivity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer has a plan to make housing in the UK more affordable. Sadly, it won’t work. His idea of cutting stamp duty for first home buyers on the first £300,000 of their half a million pound homes, will only make matters worse. So, what’s the real answer? As Professor Steve Keen explains to Phil Dobbie, it’s not to increase supply. Why not? And what should Philip Hammond...

In her book ‘Capitalism’s Toxic Assumption’ Eve Poole suggests competition can other be more destructive rather than a positive contributor to the economy. In this edition of The Debunking Economics Podcast Phil Dobbie talks to Prof. Steve Keen about scenarios where competition is more of a hinderance than a help. Can the competition regulator sometimes get in the way of initiatives that would be...

Ever considered that the reason nobody has come up with an answer to how the EU border with Northern Ireland will work, is because there isn’t one. And that’s really bad news for the Republic of Ireland. In this podcast Phil Dobbie suggests that's the case. The choices of a frictionless border or North Ireland remaining within the EU are both unworkable. So what will happen if there’s a...

Currencies fluctuate so much that there’s a lot of money being made betting on their movements. But isn’t that bad for an economy, creating uncertainty in prices for exports and imports? David, a Debunking Economics podcast listener, asks what is the critical factor for ensuring a stable currency. Phil Dobbie puts the question to Professor Steve Keen, but also has the answer first off – he must be...

There are two drivers for capitalism – the desire to consume and the desire to accumulate. Whilst the first is as strong as ever, the rising price of assets is making it harder to accumulate. So does this influence how effective capitalism is – will we work as hard if we know we can’t afford to accumulate? Or if they can afford to accumulate do they do it at the cost of consuming? Phil Dobbie talk...

Has the Bank of England lost the plot? They have lifted interest rates as though the economy was booming. Yet, just two weeks ago the Financial Conduct Authority reported that many would struggle to pay £50 more each month on our mortgage, and real wages haven’t budged for over a decade. In this edition of the Debunking Economics podcast Phil Dobbie asks Professor Steve Keen what the central bank...

Dynamic, stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are used by monetary policy analysts the world over. But, in this edition of the Debunking Economists podcasts, Prof. Steve Keen suggests to Phil Dobbie that the model is neither dynamic nor general that fail to recognise shocks and crises like the financial crisis or the great depression. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa...

It seems common sense that we should keep a handle on the amount of money in circulation. Central banks, curiously, think they do. But, as Professor Steve Keen explains to Phil Dobbie in this edition of the Debunking Economics podcast there are lots of ways money is created. Unfortunately, all our not recognised by conventional economists, and until we realise where money is coming from we have no...

Can centralised monetary policy work in federated states? The grand plan for the EU was to create a United States of Europe – a phrase coined by Sir Winston Churchill directly after the Second World War. In today’s podcast Phil Dobbie talks to Prof. Steve Keen about how central bank’s monetary policies might muddy Churchill’s vision. Is it possible to run a single policy across multiple countries...

At their party conference last week the Tories were united on one thing – a Corbyn government would lead to Venezuelan style socialism. Free market thinking is the right and proper way to prosper. In this edition of the Debunking Economics podcast we look at how socialism has become a swear word and there’s no acknowledgement of the middle ground from either side of politics. As Phil Dobbie discus...

Earlier this year President Trump was complaining that China was guilty of currency manipulation. Cheap prices were giving the Chinese a competitive advantage, evidenced by a trade balance between the two nations that, last year, was $347 billion in favour of China. So what’s the best way of dealing with the strength of the Chinese economy. Prof Steve Keen suggests that the President was right at...

UK inflation is now at 2.9% - the highest it’s been in five years – and well above the 2% target that the Bank of England has set for itself. It means we can expect an interest rate rise in the very near future. In the US the Federal Reserve is also looking to raise interest rates even though inflation has subsided lately. In this edition of The Debunking Economics podcast Phil Dobbie asks Prof St...

The US Federal Reserve is getting rid of it, the European Central Bank has talked about it and could go next. Quantitative Easing, it seems, is falling out of favour. But was it doing any good any way? In this podcast Phil Dobbie asks Professor Steve Keen whether QE helps the broader economy or just the financial elites? Vitor Constancio, the Vice President of the European Central Bank has said th...

It’s 10 years since the start of the global financial crisis, when the UK saw a run on the Northern Rock Building Society. A year letter the contagion spread, with banks falling like flies on both sides of the Atlantic. So what went wrong and are we repeating the mistakes. Phil Dobbie talks to Professor Steve Keen, one of a handful of people who predicted the crisis the first-time round. In this p...