Guest Lecturer – Professor Steve Keen – Friday, September 7
Guest Lecturer: Steve Keen – Friday, September 7th
We are hosting, in conjunction with MADE and RSS, Professor Steve Keen, who will give a presentation on Friday the 7th of September:
Steve Keen is Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Western Sydney and author of Debunking Economics.
A long-time critic of neoclassical economics, Professor Keen includes in his economic modelling relevant real world data, and so was able to give fore-warning of the current global financial crisis.
At the lecture Professor Keen will discuss the failures of monetary economics, talk about why the current economic situation cannot be solved with current methods, and present alternative economic models that reflect the real world, including a look at the work of Hyman Minsky.
“We currently have a dysfunctional financial system that has imposed unconscionable debt burdens upon some, and created enormous Ponzi-based wealth for others.”
He will also take a brief look at issues that affect New Zealand’s economic well-being, including our housing market, private debt levels and foreign asset ownership.
Date: Friday, September 7th
Time: 6pm
Location: OGGB4 (Lecture Theatre 4), Level 0, Business School
Look forward to seeing you there.
Interest: What Is It And Why It Should Interest Us
Weekly Meeting – Interest: What Is It And Why It Should Interest Us
More capital means more production.
Greater production takes more time.
Bringing time into the equation means talking about interest—but where do interest payments come from?
Where, in short, does interest come from?
From capital? From productivity?
As a reward from abstinence? As a theft by the capitalist class from workers? As an immoral imposition on borrowers by lenders?
How is interest earned—or is it?
Where does “the natural rate of interest” come from—or is there one?
And what role did interest play in building the world we live in today?
Starting with Aristotle and the monks of the Middle Ages, we look at how the subject of interest has been used and abused by thinkers throughout history—and why a correct understanding of interest has such a powerful bearing on both why economies grow, and how they crash.
Date: Monday, August 13
Time: 6pm
Location: Room 215, Level 2, Business School Building
See you there.
Free Event by The New Zealand Initiative: The End of Ponzi Prosperity
Hi everyone.
When it comes to the financial world and the power of economics few can explain it better than Satyajit Das. And this coming Tuesday at 5.30pm in downtown Auckland you have the opportunity to attend his presentation titled The End of Ponzi Prosperity. It is free to attend but you MUST REGISTER. To do this go to the event page:
http://theendofponziprosperity.eventbrite.com/
The event synopsis reads “Have we spent too much for too long? Are the clever financial instruments that were supposed to prop up the system starting to buckle? Guest speaker Satyajit Das suggests we’re in a botox economy where things have been desperately covered up to conceal the truth. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, he says, are just the front carriages in an impending financial train wreck. In his talk, Satyajit Das will explore how the global economy and financial engine is resetting and the challenges ahead.
Satyajit Das is an international specialist in the area of financial derivatives, risk management, and capital markets. He acts as a consultant to banks, investors, corporations and regulators in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
His latest book, Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk, (2011) was described by economist Nouriel Roubini as: “A true insider’s devastating analysis of the financial alchemy of the last 30 years and its destructive consequences. With his intimate first-hand knowledge, Das takes a knife to global finance and financiers to reveal its inner workings without fear or favor.”
Satyajit Das was also featured in Charles Ferguson’s 2010 Oscar winning documentary Inside Job, the 2012 PBS Frontline series Money, Power & Wall Street and a 2009 BBC TV documentary – Tricks with Risk. A recent radio interview with him on the LIBOR scandal taking place in the UK offers some very interesting insights.
We hope to see you there.
Weekly Meeting Cancelled Due to Public Holiday
Hello all,
Our meeting for this Monday coming (4th June) is cancelled, due to rooms being unavailable on a public holiday. Meetings will resume as usual on Monday the 11th of June.
Also, start thinking about an idea you can present over the holiday period. Would be interesting to hear some different ideas and it is a good experience for you to practice speaking (or arguing) in front of a group of people. Of course, we will not force you to present, but you are encouraged to do so. Aim for about a 10 minute presentation followed by a discussion period. Either let me know via email or Facebook what you would like to talk about.
Good luck with your exams and related study.
Money: Hero or Villian?
What is money?
What are all these bits of paper we carry in our pockets, or (if we’re lucky) we find digitally in our bank accounts? Why is the pursuit of money so universal, and when did it start?
Is the pursuit of money the root of all evil? Or of good?
To answer these questions, and many more like them, we need to examine how money developed historically, and how it has evolved since.
Understanding the nature of money is crucial for every serious student of economics, especially since money forms one half of every transaction, because money is so widely misunderstood, and because when the quality of money is undermined then so too is the economy.
This week we discuss money, sound and unsound—and ask: money, hero or villain?
Time: 6:00pm
Date: May 28, 2012
Location: Case Room 4, Level 0, University of Auckland Business School
Look forward to seeing you there.
Weekly Meeting – Economic Harmonies IV: Planning Without Central Plans
ECONOMIC HARMONIES, IV: Planning Without Central Plans
Tomorrow evening, Monday, we will complete our discussion of planning without a central plan—which completes our exposition of what Frederic Bastiat called the “economic harmonies” of the marketplace.
The market has a plan. It’s called the Price System– the means whereby hundreds of million individual decision-makers can coordinate their plans without ever having met each other.
This is the “Visible Hand” of the market that is all but invisible to those unable to see the millions of interactions that ‘are the products of human action but not of human design’ representing the ‘spontaneous order’ of the market.
So this Monday at the Auckland Uni Economics Group we complete our discussion on “horse trading” and answer more questions Price System and Economic Coordination—offering answers to many questions, including
-> Price signals: what exactly do they communicate?
-> Who exactly sets prices, and how?
-> What sets prices: supply and demand or costs of production?
-> Speculators—good or bad? and
-> Is our need for wealth unlimited?
All this and more, including five simple principles the Classical Economists observed to explain how the market almost automatically coordinates the economic activity of every person on the planet, and why the result is, not an “anarchy of production” but, regularity and order.
Our economist heroes of the night include Frederic Bastiat, David Ricardo, Eugen v. Bohm-Bawerk, Friedrich Hayek and George Reisman.
Where: Case Room 4, Level 0, Business School Building
Date: Monday, 7 May
Time: 6pm
Come along and be both entertained and educated!
Riko Stevens
UoA Economics Group
PS: Note that due to popular demand all meetings are now being held on Monday evenings instead of Thursday evenings. We hope to see you there!
PPS: Many of you have been asking if you can bring friends along, especially friends who are not students—or not economics students. Our answer: of course! The more the merrier.
Planning Without Plans
It’s said that the market can’t plan; that without a central planner no planning can get done.
It’s a mystery to many people, but just because they can’t see the planning themselves doesn’t mean there is nothing there.
The market does have a plan. It’s called the Price System.
The Price System is the means whereby hundreds of million individual decision-makers can coordinate their plans without ever having met each other.
This Monday at the Auckland Uni Economics Group we discuss the Price System and Economic Coordination—offering five simple principles to help you understand how the market almost automatically coordinates the economic activity of every person on the planet, and why order rather than an “anarchy of production” is the result.
Date: Monday, 30th of April
Time: 6pm
Place: Case Room 4, Level 0, Business School Building
Look forward to seeing you there.
PS: Note that due to popular demand all meetings are now being held on Monday evenings instead of Thursday evenings. We hope to see you there!
PPS: Many of you have been asking if you can bring friends along, especially friends who are not students—or not economics students. Our answer: of course! The more the merrier.
Economic Harmonies Part III: – Making the World Harmonious
Hello All,
This week we continue looking at the Economic Harmonies:
-> Remember how economics teaches us The General Gain From the Existence of Others?
-> Remember how the Division of Labour makes us all more productive?–How Comparative Advantage and the Pyramid of Ability show us we all have a place in production.
-> And remember the Miracle of Breakfast?–and how “Paris Gets Fed.”
Well, this week we look at the foundations which the very existence of all of the these miracles, and all of the Economic Harmonies we’ve talked about, rest upon.
Date: Monday, 23rd April
Time: 6pm
Where: Seminar Room 219, Level 2, Business School Building
Come along this Monday to continue your exploration of economics, and hear about these very special six things.
Weekly Meeting – Hayek vs Keynes Debate
Weekly Meeting – Greed, by John Stossel
Hello Everyone,
This week we are going to be watching a video called Greed, by John Stossel.
It will look at such questions as: Is greed good or bad? What are the implications of greed on the the economy?
Where: Case Room 3, Level Zero, Business School
When: Thursday, 5th April
Time: 6pm
Also, lecture material and other interesting links are up on the blog now. I will be adding to these over the holiday.
For those of you who are on Facebook, please take part in the poll regarding which day we should hold our meeting. If you do not have Facebook, you can email us.
Look forward to seeing you there
UOA Economics Group 