A key policy area of Modern Monetary Theory is the idea of a job guarantee. There might be a limit to available resources, but the labour force should always be employed. It helps the economy and it’s good for the individuals and for society. But Phil wonders how practical it is. If there’s an economic downturn can the government miraculously conjure up worthwhile jobs? Steve says it was less of an issue in the 50s and 60s when a higher proportion of the population worked for the government. Per...
May 07, 2025•43 min•Season 1Ep. 454
Why is it, that whilst there are an increasing number of billionaires on the planet, the rest of us are no better than we were decades ago? Young people can’t get on the housing ladder, there’s an increasing waiting list for health services, schools are short of money and tertiary education, once free, leaves students with a lifetime of debt. Except for the very rich, of course. Cahal Moran says more economics students are questioning what they are being taught in lectures and examines what’s re...
Apr 30, 2025•48 min•Season 1Ep. 453
The standard excuse for why states fail is the rampant printing of money. That certainly doesn’t help, but it’s often the symptom not the cause. In most cases states fail simply because the government isn’t in control. Take, for example, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan. Burt Phil asks Steve whether recent warnings on bond markets show that government debt can place the economy in a precarious position. Take the Liz Truss disaster budget. Or Trump’s swift reversal on tariffs in re...
Apr 22, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 452
In 1944, at Bretton Woods, 44 countries agreed to make the US dollar the world's reserve currency. This decision inflated the dollar's value, making American exports expensive and imports cheaper. Donald Trump is now addressing this imbalance with tariffs on countries with high trade surpluses. Steve suggests that adopting Keynes's proposal for a neutral Bancor currency might have been better, while Phil wonders if it's time to reintroduce it, perhaps calling it “Trump” to appeal to the Presiden...
Apr 16, 2025•43 min•Season 1Ep. 451
It’s clear that President Trump lied to the American people about his reciprocal tariffs. Many of the countries he is imposing tariffs do not impose anywhere near those numbers on imports from America. As Phil points out, some countries, like Cambodia, that sell cheap goods to the US don’t buy from the US because they can’t afford to on their low wages. You can only have trade equalisation if you have similar income levels. Steve takes us through the formula that was sued to calculate these ‘rec...
Apr 09, 2025•38 min•Season 1Ep. 450
It’s often the easy excuse on how to fix the problems of wealth inequality - just tax the rich more. Former trader turned YouTuber economist Gary Stevenson argues regularly that it’ll fix a lot of the problem. He’s right that the wealthy own assets and the richer they become the more the price of those assets increases. Take land as an example. The government is on a push to build more houses to benefit lower income earners. But who owns the land those houses will be built on? The rich? So, who ...
Apr 02, 2025•44 min•Season 1Ep. 449
It’s likely that many countries around the world will face import tariffs in retaliation for imposing a value-added-tax on American goods sold in their own country - alongside other goods, taxed equally, that are not from America. As Steve outs it this week, “What tortured brain cells have communicated to other tortured brain cells to make a proposition that VAT on imports from America is discriminatory”. Still, it looks like it might happen. And how do you resolve that situation. Do you get rid...
Mar 26, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 448
Are we kidding ourselves when we talk about an energy transition? Sure, we are using more renewables than ever before, but the planet is also using more fossil fuels than ever before. Phil asks Steve whether part of the problem is that we pout faith in incumbent energy companies managing that transition. The way BP and others have switched focus back on fossil fuel exploration shows how ill-conceived that expectation was. But, irrespective of who drives the transition, is it too much to expect t...
Mar 23, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 447
Donald Trump is doing everything he can think off to improve the US economy. Tariffs, cutting government spending, bringing manufacturing back home, accessing more resources and lowering the cost of energy. Will it work? And, if it does, Phil wonders whether there’s a ceiling to how far the US economy can grow. Or does it grow at the expense of other countries/ In other words, Phil wants Steve Keen to explain what happens as the US, the world’s leading economy, tries to heighten its supremacy. H...
Mar 12, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 446
In a recent podcast Phil suggested that bringing manufacturing home to America won’t necessarily create jobs, because most factories will be automated. They just need one man and a dog, he said. The man to turn the machine on, and the dog to make sure he doesn’t touch anything else. That touched a nerve with Brian Hanley has spent his life refining manufacturing processes. The key ingredient suggests, is people. Elon Musk was the latest to try the lights out approach and realised it didn’t work....
Mar 05, 2025•42 min•Season 1Ep. 445
Donald Trump, as the world’s highest profile climate change denier, has famously said, repeatedly, that he wants to drill baby drill, to make US energy even cheaper. It’s already half the price of Europe, and all the productivity benefits that provides. Phil and Steve talk about whether this the final nail in the coffin in a world which is paying lip service to the changes required. Is nuclear our only way to fast track a workable solution? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa...
Feb 26, 2025•40 min•Season 1Ep. 444
Reciprocal tariffs could be coming to every OECD country if we believe everything Donald Trump says. He sees VAT as a tariff imposed on US imports, which means he wants to impose the same amount on those countries for goods they export to America. That would apply to every OECD country and, supposedly, the President has said there will be no exceptions. Does this mean a global trade war is just about to happen? Steve has been a supporter of protectionism as a way to aid growth, and understands t...
Feb 19, 2025•41 min•Season 1Ep. 443
The new US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently re-iterated the US desire to remain as the world’s reserve currency, because they like a strong dollar that’s in demand worldwide. Burt he also says he doesn’t want other currencies weak, because that gives thema trade advantage. That sounds like a “cake and eat it” philosophy. This week Phil asks Steve whether the US would be better off if it wasn’t the reserve currency, and whether, in these days of electric transfers, do we actually need a ...
Feb 12, 2025•41 min•Season 1Ep. 442
Phil asked Steve a lot last week about how bank create money through the loans they issue. But he has been, it’s fair to say, a little less convinced about how government deficits create money. So prepare for a light bulb moment as Steve breaks down the process that sees the government spending more, with more money moved to the private sector, and people buying bonds, effectively with new money. They also answer a couple of listeners questions -one on the impact of Donald Trump’s tax cuts, anot...
Feb 05, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 441
Steve and Phil have described the island of Coinucopia in previous editions of the podcast. It started as a place where only coins were legal tender, and the supply of coins didn’t increase. They explained how that created deflation and inhibited growth, so the government started adding more coins. Then they let banks issue loans. Now, what happens when the island allows banks to issue electronic loans. Actually, life becomes much simpler. Much simpler than most conventional economists would hav...
Jan 29, 2025•46 min•Season 1Ep. 440
Rachel Reeves, the UK Chancellor, has fallen into the debt-trap argument. She says she is focused on growth, but she is also determined to balance the budget. Cuts to government spending is part of the picture, but her biggest attack has been on business, increasing tax on employment. You could argue that if you are going to tax anywhere, taxing business is better than taxing personal income, but Steve argues that anything that drives money out of the real economy will slow growth, evidenced by ...
Jan 22, 2025•37 min•Season 1Ep. 439
There are, its estimated, 8.2 billion people on the planet. The UN projects that the world's population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100. We won’t reach that, says Steve Keen. Even if we ignore climate change, we’ll exceed our capacity to support the population, and the as countries become richer their fertility rate will decline. The hope is that the natural decline happens before more extreme declines brought about by war, climate change and starvation. But, even intis b...
Jan 15, 2025•40 min•Season 1Ep. 438
Last week Phil introduced us to the island of Coinucopia, where only a limited supply of gold coins could be used to keep the economy functioning. But the island is suffering from very slow economic growth. Steve explains how any innovation, that sees new products come to market, will see the same money chasing more goods, so prices will necessarily come down. That’s until the island decides to allow bank loans. At first, they only allow banks to loan out coins that have been deposited with them...
Jan 08, 2025•44 min•Season 1Ep. 437
This week Phil introduces Steve Keen to the fictional island of Cornucopia. It’s a simple place, where the only trade takes place with gold coins. Banks are not allowed to give loans, and the money supply remains constant, unless the Chancellor decides to mint new ones. In such circumstances, how many basic economic principles work? Most of them, it seems. Sadly, this is not the real world, and economists who practice double entry book-keeping are imprisoned. Until the Chancellor realises there’...
Jan 01, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 436
Elon Musk has been moaning that he pays too much tax. He wants to keep more of the $14 billion or so that he earns each year. But has he got a point? Do we need to the opportunity to become incredibly wealthy to drive innovation. If we had more equal levels of income, would we actually suffer from lower growth, so everyone would end up worse off.? Phi puts the question to Steve Keen on this Christmas edition of the Debunking Economics podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more info...
Dec 25, 2024•43 min•Season 1Ep. 435
When central banks declare a new interest rate, how does that magic into existence? Steve explains how they trade in bonds, to drive yields close to their target rate. If they are buying up bonds held by pension funds and the like, are they also adding to the money supply? Could that have more impact on the health of the economy than playing with interest rates? But the problem is, the money created is circulating in the financial sector. If the central bank really wanted to boost the economy, i...
Dec 18, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 434
There’s a common myth around banks. That banks are the intermediaries who collect deposits from customers, keep a bit in reserve, then lend out the rest at a higher interest rate. That argument then extends to a multiplier effect, where the money loaned out is deposited in banks, freeing up more money for further loans. The multiplier is how textbooks argue that banks create new money for the economy. This week Steve argues that the multiplier doesn’t exist. Not in that way anyway. And banks cre...
Dec 11, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 433
Does government debt expand the supply of money? According to Modern Monetary theory, yes it does. It’s all down to simple double-entry book-keeping and an understanding of the role of financial equity. As Steve explains, in this step-by-step guide, for the private sector to experience positive equity, the government sector has to have negative equity. In other words, without the government sector spending more than it’s earning, there’s no new money being added to the private sector. As Stephan...
Dec 04, 2024•42 min•Season 1Ep. 432
You’ll know the name Mario Draghi. He was the President of the European Central Bank and, for a short while, Prime Minister of Italy. Earlier this year he produced a report EU Competitiveness. It called on the need for more Europe-wide investment, particularly for innovation, emerging industries and the transition to green energy. Phil and Steve talk through the ideas and the challenges they present to the structure of the EU. Are the challenges insurmountable? Is that why Draghi’s plan already ...
Nov 27, 2024•40 min•Season 1Ep. 431
At least half of America is elated with its new choice of President. Money is already flowing into the country, with early gains on the NYSE and the dollar shooting higher in value. Tariffs will be front and centre early in the new Presidency, with Trump describing Tariffs as “a beautiful word” recently. But will it have the intended effect. Could the strength in the dollar wipe out any of the benefits from domestic production? Will higher tariffs add to the cost and drive inflation? Does Americ...
Nov 20, 2024•40 min•Season 1Ep. 430
The UK Labour party seems top have scored another own goal, with their inheritance tax on family farms. Previously farms were exe pt from inheritance, but that meant wealthy landowners, with massive stately homes set in sprawling estates could buy a few sheep and claim they were a farm. Hence, the government limited the exemption to properties worth less than £1 million, a threshold which Steve Keen suggests is well below a realistic level. Thresholds should only be there for th every rich, whic...
Nov 13, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 429
The classical economic assumption, from the days of Adam Smith, is that we all have free will and this freedom ensures the best possible outcomes for the economy, provided those decisions are based on greed and self-interest. This week’s episode opens with a student questioning Milton Friedman about the freedom of a man who couldn’t afford to pay his electric bill, so the power company cut him off and he died. Friedman says the fault lies with friends and neighbours who didn’t step in to support...
Nov 06, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 428
Ever wondered why Britain’s roads are riddled with potholes, why the trains keep breaking down and why there aren’t enough hospital beds? Simple. Britain is not making enough capital investments. Taking the public and private sector together, it amounts to about 6 percent of GDP, well below the 22% in the US - which has its own infrastructure problems. China can spend as much as 40% of GDP on capex projects. Steve says there are two reasons why Berit5ian’s infrastructure is failing. First, not e...
Oct 30, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 427
Steve Keen says he builds his economic model based on the motivation of three types of actors. First, the worker, who wants to maximise his or her wage. Then there’s the capitalist who wants to maximise profits. And the financiers who wants to lend out as much money as possible with the best possible returns. How does Steve’s model change if most businesses became cooperatives. Workers would also become shareholders, also wanting to see strong profits. They might also have other considerations, ...
Oct 23, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 426
What causes an economy to fall from a peak? Many economists will argue it’s exogenous shocks but, as Phil and Steve discuss, there’s not too many of those around. Maybe COVID was one, but even that came about because our economic system has drawn us closer to wildlife habitats. Or is it a lack of resources? We run out of capacity to produce more, whether it’s factories, people or natural resources, like fossil fuels. Does the shortage relative to demand force prices up and its inflation that ult...
Oct 16, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 425
