Eighth and Seneca
11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
an opportunity for investors, students, economists
with Gerard Fitzpatrick and Steve Keen
"Money, Monetary Policy and Financial Repression"
$29 general, $14 students, includes light lunch
Please register in advance for this event.
Presentations by Steve Keen and Gerard Fitzpatrick (Russell Investments strategic bond fund manager) and a discussion with the audience. This is a must-see for investors and savers concerned about Federal Reserve policy.The session will focus on the policies of the Federal Reserve in the QE's and its other innovations. We anticipate a lively discussion ranging from the markets through theory and touching on the issues and risks that face investors and savers. If you register by May 16, you will receive complementary entry to the evening events, the reception and public talk. (questions? contact: 206.459.5067)
Information Registration and Tickets
4:30 PM
Reception and Book Signing with Steve Keen
Enter Downstairs off Seneca Street$10 (cash or check at the door)
[To pay with a credit or debit card, you will need to register in advance:
Register Here]
This is an opportunity to meet Steve and those who have brought him to Seattle, and to support their efforts. Very informal, with non-alcoholic beverages served only. Attendees will get into the evening session without charge.
6:00 PM
Steve Keen public talk
"The Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession: How We Got Here and the Way Out"
Town Hall traditional $5 entry
Tickets from Town Hall
Steve Keen has been cited as the economist who best predicted the Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession, and he continues to be in the middle of the discussion on what went wrong and how to set it right. The Seattle Economics Council and Demand Side Economics have partnered to bring him to Seattle's Town Hall this May 23rd. He will present a powerful critique of economics as usual. Right now Keen is on the front page in his native Australia for accuracy in predicting that country's economy over the past year.
Be there to hear Steve Keen walk us through why economics as usual failed so badly. In clear and comprehensible terms, he will explore the radical means to address debt burdens, help us understand how money is created, and give us insight into the dynamics of credit in the short and long terms.
A Primer on Steve Keen:
In late 2007, financial markets and the economy crashed. Five years later, the global economy is still mired in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Conventional economists claim that this crisis was an unforeseeable event. But was it really impossible to foresee something so big?
With a realistic approach to economics, this crisis was entirely predictable. Steve Keen was one of a bare dozen who did see it coming, and who warned of it before the event. In 2010, he won the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review for being the economist who most cogently warned of the crisis, and whose work will do most to prevent a future one (Nouriel Roubini came second, and Paul Krugman came seventh).
He was able to warn of the crisis because he has extended the realistic approach to economics developed by Hyman Minsky, which he called the "Financial Instability Hypothesis". This led him to focus on the role of private debt in economic activity, and led him to the conclusion that a crisis would hit as soon as the rate of growth of private debt slowed down. It did in late 2007.
The vast majority of economists don't even consider private debt, because they follow a theory — known as "Neoclassical Economics" — which attempts to model the economy as if it is inherently stable, and as if banks, debt and money didn't exist. Here's what Paul Krugman said in web debate with Keen in early 2012:
"Keen ... asserts that putting banks in the story is essential. Now, I’m all for including the banking sector in stories where it’s relevant; but why is it so crucial to a story about debt and leverage?"The same inability to see that banks play a crucial role in the economy lay behind the Federal Reserve's failure to see this crisis coming. Bill Pool, head of the St Louis Federal Reserve, speaking at two days before the crisis began:
"My own bet is that the financial market upset is not going to change fundamentally what’s going on in the real economy... this financial market upset is going to settle out and not have major repercussions on the real economy, putting the housing part aside." (FOMC Transcript, August 2007, p. 57)
In spite of their being ignored by conventional economists, banks, debt and money are essential aspects of a market economy, and they must be included in economic models. "Modeling capitalism without banks, debt and money is like modeling birds without wings," says Keen. The only official economics body that gave any warning of the approaching crisis— the Bank of International Settlements — made precisely this point in a recent paper entitled "The financial cycle and macroeconomics: What have we learnt?":
"Think monetary! Modelling the financial cycle correctly requires recognizing fully the fundamental monetary nature of our economies: the financial system does not just allocate, but also generates, purchasing power, and has very much a life of its own."
Presented by the Seattle Economics Council.
