How Economics Became a Cult 

I used to get so frustrated in economics classes because of the assumptions.

Professor Steve Keen is professor, he can deliver 14 minutes main points without "a blink", for sure he can go on for hours more and more detail would be presented. My respects professor, keep doing an advocates job...

> tries to reform economics -9k/month patreon >dresses up in overwatch cosplay - 130k/month patreon

Let me get this straight: 1/ Economics is an intellectual competition largely based on ego 2/ They all have their dogma 3/ Most of them are wrong.

One theory to rule them all One theory to bind them...

Genius Idea!!!! "Steve Keen" About building a module that preview the outcome of an economic decision. THE WORLD NEEDS THIS ASAP

Mythematics is a word I will have to start using. Thanks!

"The genuine sciences"...You have to like Steve Keen. Economics...the dismal science.

In 1973 I sat in a conference room with Jay Forrester and a whole group of other world class intellects. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was there to record one of their number, Stafford Beer deliver their very prestigious annual Massey lectures. The topic of the conference was the application of simulation models to economics. Stafford Beer had just returned from Chile, where he had set up an economic management system for the country using a model of this type for Salvadore Allende. Unfortunately the decision room he built to run the system was machine gunned at the same time as Allende. There was a lot of brilliant work on that approach done at the time and earlier. Beer himself had written Brain of the Firm, which applied the design of the human brain and nervous system to the problem of creating an effective enterprise. Ross Ashby, Beer's mentor, had written some amazing, highly mathematical, works on cybernetics and control theory. After a brief efflorescence this effort died, killed by the econometricians, chassical economists on mathematical steroids. I would suggest that Dr. Keen might well profit from an investigation of this material.

I totally agree with Prof. Keen about the fallacies of mainstream (neoclassical/neoliberal) economics, but I don't believe, the solution should be more elaborate mathematics. Economy needs first of all multi-disciplinary holistic and philosophical view combining fields like evolutionary social and biological anthropology, ecology, history of civilizations, history of thought, sociology, psychology etc. and qualitative analysis. In that sense, Small is Beautiful (E.F. Schumacher) and some books of Vandana Shiva are best economy books I've ever read.

Wow. I'm a Computer Science student and I had similar ideas for economic computations. What a great guy!

"Yin and Yang" is part of Taoism, not Buddhism.

Listening to this while doing stretches.

Yes! I feel like is better saying what has been on the tip of my tongue for so many years. Money is like blood- economists should measure it's flow and viscosity in order to understand macroeconomics better, and I feel like this guy was something along these lines at a few different points. I am glad I stumbled upon this video and I hope to see more videos like this!!

Steve Keen mentions the economist Hyman Minsky then later talks about the software he designed/commissioned called "Minsky," named in honour of the economist. Whether this was an editing or recording oversight, it'd be good to point out in the description as it'd be confusing for someone not familiar with his work.

I've been drawing the comparison between economic ideologies and religion for quite some time.

J .Forester. 4.66 causal matlab simulink minski soft

confusing economic forecasting with economics is the most misunderstandings of the new thinking school. they had no or little knowledge of mainstream economics but frequently refer to it as the wrong model.

No it is difficult to use because the GUI does not use gestalt principles of UID and UX. It wouldn't pass an undergraduate IT project course. I give it the benefit of the doubt that it'll become user friendly if ever finished.

The prospect of having politicians test their ideas on a computer simulation of the macro-economy seems very interesting. It seems like this approach has the potential to push empiricism into politics.

there have actually been studies done on this topic that conclude that _homo economicus_ is completely wrong, with one exception - economists. so, they can't see how wrong they are. classical economics is consequently quite literally about the blind leading the blind.

I would like to know the effects of Endogenous money on the purchase of Treasury Securities, and ultimately the income tax.

Wow as an actuary and avid reader of austrian economics I am glad to have found this professor. I also agree with good parts of marx and the use of rigorous math in economic models to build a better model, Always found ceteris paribus the lamest approach to still be taught in college and always knew it was a relative easy problem to solve with a good team and this guy did it. Fantastic sir.

I assumed the video would respond to the question set by the headline.

Most interesting comment @David Ford In 1973 I sat in a conference room with Jay Forrester and a whole group of other world class intellects. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was there to record one of their number Stafford Beer deliver their very prestigious annual Massey lectures The topic of the conference was the application of simulation models to economics Stafford Beer had just returned from Chile where he had set up an economic management system for the country using a model of this type for Salvadore Allende Unfortunately the decision room he built to run the system was machine gunned at the same time as Allende There was a lot of brilliant work on that approach done at the time and earlier Beer himself had written Brain of the Firm, which applied the design of the human brain and nervous system to the problem of creating an effective enterprise Ross Ashby, Beer's mentor, had written some amazing, highly mathematical, works on cybernetics and control theory. After a brief efflorescence this effort died, killed by the econometricians, classical economists on mathematical steroids. I would suggest that Dr. Keen might well profit from an investigation of this material

Steve Keen, Peter Joseph, Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton are the only people I watch and listen to when it comes to this system

English translation required.

I am too dumb to understand most of this, except that classical economic theory is flawed

what about externalities to get your model to work? nothing was said about state capitalism and " money as debt "

Thanks for candor about economics. I have rrlative who spent life in it ith wuntum phyics. I never understood so the big lesp in myths witn math help me tht it's fsntasyland in ivory toer. Too bad our brightest aren't hlping olve wold critical problem. He slwys tslked 'publish or perish '& got trnure young

He hit the nail on the head.

I spend a good deal of time on the problem of pseudoscience in economics and other than modeling "Patterns of Sustainable Specialization and Trade" - meaning, modeling at a lower level than the mainstream - I am not sure what Steve is actually saying here. The mainstream is pretty good at measuring the investment cycle, a little less good at the tax cycle, but bad at the economic, political, demographic, and civilizational cycles.And the reason is rather obvious.

0"03 -"accidental? failures" - I doubt that VERY much ! ! ! - I suspect Steve Keen is being FAR too generous ! Also being generous the best light I can show on their GROSS stupidity is that, according to Yanis Varoufakis they built their financial model on a fixed moment in time & thus TOTALLY ignored a VERY basic fact that the universe we live in is a non linear PROCESS ! ! ! To use financial terminology they consider process to be an "externality" that can be "safely" ignored ! According to Yanis Varoufakis the maths attached to their model is a complete load of bull sh*t which was designed to impress gullible people so that these con men could gain promotion & wealth in the academic world. Another way of looking @ this scam is it's a case of "The Emperor's Clothes" that do NOT exist in reality! But then they chose to ignore reality/ process in the first place !

what hes saying is at least partially right, but hes vague and his motives seem suspicious, plus hes ignoring a few things and re wording definitions. Economics is a cult but he doesnt define how. He doesnt go into debt, or the lack of long term planning in current economic models. Hes just saying a lot without saying much of anything at all.

Exactly, economic theology

"I basically predicted the recession", songwriters and laymen in the street were predicting the recession, what Keen tried to predict was the Australian house price crash, which didn't happen at that time. All this is ignoring the fact that trying to legislate against market downturns is more likely to make them worse.

Love this. I'm studying mathematics right now and it makes me so excited to see new potential applications I could try out.

It's true that there is something quite radical in the idea that a certain mode of social organisation can transmute rational self-interest into effective altruism. Whether the current mode of society actually does that is debatable, however.

I love this.

When an economist in black leather jacket claims something, u gotta take it seriously.

The fundamental problem with modern economics is that it assumes people are rational. I feel like that is a quote from someone.

beautiful

No money, no banks, no debts is a lie. I mean you can just google, right? Of course, assumptions are simplified to understand the theory. However, you can make it complex however you want. Complexity btw doesn't always mean better...I find that this is true in economics, machine learning and data science.

What could possibly go wrong with the markets? The same as last time. Free market beliefs were at a low ebb in the 1930s and there were just two bastions of free market thinking left. 1) The University of Chicago economics department 2) The LSE “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” Irving Fisher 1929. This 1920's neoclassical economist that believed in free markets knew this was a stable equilibrium. He became a laughing stock. The pressure was really on in the US as their free market thinkers had made fools of themselves. They needed to find out where they had gone wrong. They eventually worked out there were two factors at work, which had artificially inflated the market. 1) Share buybacks 2) The use of bank credit for margin lending. Henry Simons was a founder member of the Chicago School of Economics and he had worked out what was wrong with his beliefs in free markets in the 1930s. Banks can inflate asset prices with the money they create from bank loans. www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf Henry Simons and Irving Fisher supported the Chicago Plan to take away the bankers ability to create money. “Simons envisioned banks that would have a choice of two types of holdings: long-term bonds and cash. Simultaneously, they would hold increased reserves, up to 100%. Simons saw this as beneficial in that its ultimate consequences would be the prevention of "bank-financed inflation of securities and real estate" through the leveraged creation of secondary forms of money.” www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Henry_Calvert_Simons They had worked out where they went wrong, but by this stage everyone else had moved on with the New Deal, and no one was particularly interested in their findings. They had missed the boat. Hayek was at the LSE, and seems to have been totally oblivious to the Wall Street Crash, and it never even occurred to him that there might be something to learn from it. He just ploughed on as if nothing had happened. In the 1940s, Hayek put together his theories of the markets being a mechanism for transmitting the collective wisdom of market participants around the world through pricing. It was never going to get into the mainstream until nearly everyone had forgotten what happened last time they believed in the markets, i.e. the 1980s. Unfortunately, Hayek won out and the lessons of 1929 were forgotten. What lifted US stocks to 1929 levels in 1929? Margin lending and share buybacks. What lifted US stocks to 1929 levels in 2019? Margin lending and share buybacks. A former US congressman has been looking at the data. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7zu3SgXx3q4.html The Americans are going to re-learn those lessons the hard way. It’s a pity they didn’t stick with their own free market thinkers who worked this out after last time. They’ll be cursing Hayek soon.

Keen 4 Keen

Universal Basic Income, Public Banking, Cooperative Banking. Check out the work of Richard Werner

"The most dangerous cult is the one that doesn't realize it is one."

Academia is necessarily driven by peer review. That works very well in science which has evidence and mathematical models based on evidence. But once papers are based on opinion, then your ability to published depends on alignment to reviewers opinions. Without publications in good journals you cant have an academic career.

i love this guy, i hear Werner in him

The Tao talks about Yin and Yang probabilistic blending, Buddhism is about centering in a state of Levitation, and both systems are aspect-versions of logarithmic condensation-coordination, superimposed coherence-cohesion, resonant objectives vanishing-into-no-thing at universal Singularity-point positioning.

What came first the chicken or the egg? Professor Werner: “...... neo-classical economics, as dominant today, has used the deductive methodology: Untested axioms and unrealistic assumptions are the basis for the formulation of theoretical dream worlds that are used to present particular ‘results’. As discussed in Werner (2005), this methodology is particularly suited to deriving and justifying preconceived ideas and conclusions, through a process of working backwards from the desired ‘conclusions’, to establish the kind of model that can deliver them, and then formulating the kind of framework that could justify this model by choosing suitable assumptions and ‘axioms’. In other words, the deductive methodology is uniquely suited for manipulation by being based on axioms and assumptions that can be picked at will in order to obtain pre-determined desired outcomes and justify favoured policy recommendations. It can be said that the deductive methodology is useful for producing arguments that may give a scientific appearance, but are merely presenting a pre-determined opinion.” The desired outcome can come first and the economics second.

It's interesting how dismissive some of you are in the comments. If you haven't thought about how illogical some of the things that were taught in your economics undergrad... its safe to say, you probably don't really know what you're talking about. Gonna do some more research on this guy

This is not at all what is taught in ALL major universities. many hold the view that the equilibrium is some sort of ideal; any given circumstances will tend to lean towards a certain equilibrium but not get there - because as is explained in the video, the world does not run on assumptions made by certain types of scholars.

In Neo-liberal economic theory, the sole internal purpose of government is to ensure large concentrations of economic power, and in particular financial power, are altogether unregulated. Unfortunately, attempts at labour organisation have compelled government to remain in being to regulate labour into economic and political ineffectuality. Otherwise, they would, of course, have abolished themselves, making themselves redundant, and increasing the supply of competitive cheap labour, knowing that, that way, we are all better off.

The first 70 seconds. ❤

There is just so much to unpack here. The assertion that mainstream economics does not take money seriously is simply not true. Articles on the money demand deriving from exchange frictions and money being held to speculate on future consumption opportunities as long as it is widely accepted have been published in mainstream economic journals for a three decades now. Yes the notion of equilibrium is a joke and this is a major flaw in mainstream economics but I feel like Prof. Keen is very much picking selective evidence to support his claim that "all" economists are blind to reality. Intellectually lazy...

"The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people." Karl Marx

It's amazing how unrealistic the economic theory taught is. Always requires false/unrealistic assumptions. The economic system is based in debt creation (money out of thin air), which is just a devaluation of the currency. They then act as though more debt is growth, when in reality no value has been added. How can a deteriorating house increase in value? In real terms it decreases in real value. Like a lot of academia, the institutions are guilty of teaching dogma, in order to create/maintain a Vampirical/Empirical pyramid system, where there is only motivation to repeat dogma and serve a minority. The philosophy needed is to realise that the greed of the individual is best served by serving the interest of the whole community,, and rather than trying to dominate nature, looking for the path of least resistance in order to flow in harmony with it.

Freakonomics 5:00

The fundamental failure of economists today is thier belief Capitalism is suitable for all exchanges and their refusal to acknowledge when Socialism is the answer for the task. Capitalism is not capable of dealing with the social problems that cost under Capitalism but have no returns, or more to the point no tangible financial returns. This unwillingness to admit capitalism is not a system that handles these cases at all is the fundamentalism that economists an Capitalists suffer from.

The difference between physics and economy is that in the first, the gifted rise to the maximum prestige; and in the second, is anchored to the lowest attention. Imagine if physicists had never wanted to believe Einstein because he postulate that gravety wasn't a force, but a deformation of the space-time manifold. Today it wouldn't exist many things, for be concise, everything space related techo.

Physics and economics changed in the 20th century. The atom had no structure in 1900, there were no galaxies and there was no GNP/GDP. Physicists did not buy cars in 1900 but shouldn't they recognize planned obsolescence and notice that economists are ignoring the depreciation of durable consumer goods by now? What is Net Domestic Product?

there is no equilibrium

Old school economics, the economics of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, has been abandoned because the people at the top don't like the predicitons it makes. Nowadays economists start with the conclusions first and try and justify them - this is the opposite of science, wherein you make predictions based on observations and see if later observations support or falsify the predictions. Real predicitive economics was abandoned when Karl Marx showed that the same model used by Smith and Ricardo would inevitably result in the collapse of capitalism, other economists (especially the rich ones) did not like this conclusion but couldn't disprove it, so they invented new economic models whole-cloth to try and ignore the inevitable truth: Marx was right.

True revolutionary. Leather jacket under which he hides his own books that totally debunk all misconceived world views.

The solution to economics is Simulink?? improbable...

Keen is just one of the economist trying to use models of complex ,dynamic and disequilibrium system in order to analyze the economy. Mainstrean economists know and care about complex, nonlinear, disquilibrium models but they do not prefer to use it. The models have longstanding history starting at least from 1960s or even before. You can see Barro and Grossman's work on disequilibrium model in AER which is the one of the best "Mainstream" economics journal in 1975. There are tons of other works. Gintis who is also a famous mainstream scholar still publishes his works on complex disequilibrium model to the decent mainstream journal like Economics Journal. These lines of works are considered seriously to the mainstream economists but not used frequently just because there is no empirical evidence that these models are better in explaining/predicting the world than the equilibrium models. Economists are interested in understanding the observed facts. If disequilibrium models explains the world better then the economists will use that model. There is no doubt. Discipline is not dogmatic at all. There is probability that Keen's model is better than existing ones. However, i eel uncomfortable because he has no respect for the rest of other economists who really try hard to understand the economy in scientic way. You don't have the right to call all the others' works 'myth' just because you are using the different tool. Economics may or may not be science. It depends on your definition of science. If you are defining science in a narrow way, economics is not a science. It is obvious that there is no comparable equation in economics like those in exact sciences, physics, chemistry and etc. Unlike units of analysis in exact sciences, molecules, planets, energies.., those in economics are individuals and groups of individuals which have wills, expectations and feelings. So even if we conduct perfectly controlled experiment repeatedly, there should be some variations in result. However, it does not mean that we cannot find causal effects. We can find general, indisputable tendencies existing in human society. So if you define science in a very narrow sense then econimics is not a science. However, if you are considering any discpline that uses scientific methods but cannot bring us exact, universal laws as a science then economics is science also. I am sorry that my english poor. However, i strongly feel to post a comment against the man who claims that whole discipline is nothing but myth and people who argue economics is not a science without any logical argument.

We didn't have a great depression between 1945 and 1982 but we did have a whole lot of crashes...

Interesting. Economics can't handle money. Makes sense to me. I've always felt that most economic schools, most especially the Chicago school, exist only to rationalize whatever the rich people who endow the school want.

What could outsider independent economics produce? I've been working on outsider economics theories over 10,000 hours and writing books, but haven't published yet. I want to go to market with my economics business pricing solution that will solve poverty. How is that possible to solve poverty? By creating a price tag and coupon technology upgrade that lets a seller charge more money to rich people and less to poor people for the same thing. The technology works by introducing a unit of "hours of your personal time" as a unit of exchange in a price tag. Instead of a coffee costing $5, a seller can write a price tag as "$2 +0.1hr". the "0.1hr" is for a price of zero point one hours of your personal time and is converted based on your personal $/hr rate for convenient payment in dollars only at the cash register. with a price tag of "$2+0.1hr" a poor person pays $2+0.1hrX$10/hr=$3 for the coffee. A middle income person pays price calculated at $2+0.1hrX$30/hr = $5, and a rich person pays $2+0.1hrX$90/hr=$11 for the coffee. If this alternative economics and business model interests, you, then you can find out more in a youtube video I created at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WMZNcNyFWE0.html

Someone gotta translate for those who aren't PHD economists.

You also misunderstand what mainstream economists mean by an equilibrium. It is not a static outcome. We call that a steady state. Macroeconomics is all about dynamic equilibrium.

Is every economic school a cult or just the schools of thought that you don’t subscribe to? More math for Econ students sounds like a good idea.

The man begins by stating he's attempting to bring the techniques of the "genuine sciences" into neo-classical economics. Then he proceeds to immediately cite "non-mainstream" economists like Hymen Minsky, who belong to the Austrian School, a tradition of economics which rejects the concept of data collection and quantitative measurements in favor of thought experiments... Eric Weinstein's work applying Gauge theory to neo-classical economics proves its scientific value. Is he part of a different institute for new economic thinking? Has this man not read his colleague's work? Nice leather jacket though, very badass.

Not only do citizens not have perfect information, nor rational decision-making processes, but marketers deliberately distort information and encourage irrational behavior as strategies for maximizing the profits of individuals. It might be possible for markets to be maintained fairly close to equilibrium, and the public would be best served by it, but the profits of unscrupulous individuals would be curtailed. The laws won't be passed, and the economy will always suffer instabilities for that reason.

My premise is that real wealth is actually progeny.

Sounds like he is talking about brexiters rather than economists

Macro economics is not like physics at all. U cant test macroeconomic theories like u can say quantum mechanics. Complex economic models are useless as the assumptions which are turned into formulas are not repeatable and nonlinear. Hayek nailed this decades ago.

In the end I'm left with the most important question unanswered: what on earth is neoclassical economics in Keen's definition? I'm saying that because, from his speech, I have to conclude that the only way not to make his entire enterprise a monumental strawman is to equate neoclassical economics with real business cycle theory. But that would be ridiculous, since his critique clearly appears to be targeted to the whole of the mainstream/neoclassical economics. If not the whole, at least the majority of the profession apart from behavioral economics and one or another field that does not rely on general equilibrium for theory. My first reaction to that is ask where does he put empirics? And I don't mean structural estimation, but reduced form natural experiments. They are the vast majority of papers in the discipline. Do they count as neoclassical economics? If not, why does Keen seems mad about the profession when the majority of players are doing empirical research not directly depended on assumptions? And what about general equilibrium papers with market failures? There are papers with all sorts of space for intervention. It seems like he is implying that all equilibria is pareto efficient in a general equilibrium model, but that obviously depends on the assumptions of the model. Let me guess: he thinks the welfare theorem applies to all kinds of general equilibrium models... Now that we have covered 90% of the discipline of (mainstream/neoclassical) economics, which include fields like growth, development, industrial organization, international economics, urban economics, etc... all possibly dismissed as ptolemaic economics by our hero (we don't know if his target is really the 90%, since his terminology is sloppy), let's go to the field of macroeconomics, where it feels like it's really where Keen is mad. So stay with me folks, we are going to smooth his vitriol and accept that he is really mad at 10% of the discipline, despite making all of economics sound like garbage. We are going to stay with, basically, macroeconomics. So Keen says: (i) There is no money in the model (ii) There are no banks nor debt in the model (ii) There is no market fricction and the economy is populated by rational individuals with rational expectations, operating in perfect competition (iv) There is no room for government intervention (v) The model is one of equilibrium Okay, so these items decribe the real business cycle theory/new classical macro. In its heyday, in the 80s, it was probably 50% of macroeconomics. Today it is much smaller and New Keynesian models respond for the majority of research. Why does Keen appear to think that new classical RBC is all there is to mainstream macro? Well, either he is misinformed about it, or even worse, he thinks that because RBC and DSGE models share some properties then they are the same (by reading some things he wrote I can infer that). But that's nonsense. Keynesian DSGE: (i) Has money and it has impact in the short run. Monetary policy has real effect. (ii) There are no banks nor debt in the workhorse model. That does not mean macroeconomists don't care about it, it just means that for the most part we can do the analysis of business cycle ignoring it. There are other types of models dealing with the connection of the financial sector with the economy. When those factors become relevant, you take the model which deal with that issue from the hat, and leave the workhorse model behind. In economics we use different models for different situations, not necessarily a single model for everything. (iii) There is market friction: imperfect competition and sticky prices. (iv) Even though in the long run the economy could recover, there is room for monetary policy to push the economy to full employment faster. (v) The model has a long run equilibrium. You could study disequilibrium by giving it a shock and observing how variables converge to the long run equilibrium. So we just refuted the idea that Keynesian DSGE is the same or has the same implications of New Classical RBC models. Now, it does seem that he is fond of Post Keynesian stuff that would be different from New Keynesian stuff. So Keen's substance has just fall from "economics is all wrong and follows stupid assumptions" to "I want to give room to post-keynesian ideas inside macroeconomics", which is an understandable claim, but nowhere near the form of the attack. If you want to model an economy where there is no automatic tendency to full employment, fine. Do it. The fact that mainstream macro assumes we need the government to push the economy to full employment faster is compatible with such understanding, even if the theory behind is different. I assume monetary versus fiscal policy would be a major theme of contention, as it seems like Post Keynesians emphasize more fiscal policy. But again, in the zero lower bound we converge on the mechanics of the economy. At the zero lower bound there really is no tendency to full employment and we know that since Keynes. Of course New Keynesian workhorse DSGE cannot work in this situation, but other models will. Maybe the mainstream should be more open to talk to heterodox thinkers, even if they don't have a mathematical model, but it doesn't help if they view themselves as saviors and grossly misunderstands and/or misrepresents the mainstream.

Macroeconomists use MATLAB all the time. This is the problem with heterodox economists. They are disconnected and misinformed about the actual mainstream profession.

Who said money makes no difference?? I mean, all central bankers know money makes a differences in the short run. And that is why they make monetary policies. Duh.. I mean, if you studied money in utility monetary model in grad sch or read Gali's book...then you know money makes a difference... Not sure this guy has read enough literature...

Post-Keynesians have predicted a recession constantly for a while now, getting it right once in 2008 was a lucky strike

You're framing the question wrong it's not marxist/marxian socialism with marxist/marxian communism in mind versus capitalism it's marxoid social democratic liberal/libertarian capitalism versus centrist liberal/libertarian capitalism and so-called radical centrist liberal/libertarian capitalism versus neo-liberal/neo-libertarian/neo-conservative white-market corporate capitalism since the mid-1980s to mid-1990s in both the so-called developed urbanised post-industrialised western world/western world/first-world and in the so-called under-developed/developing ruralised industrialising/industrialised eastern world/eastern world/third-world

I won't say Economics is a cult. Rather, there are some economists who have a cult following. That doesn't make the discipline of economics a cult.

His argument seems to be: neo-classical economics fails by not acknowledging the role of money, banks, and debt. This argument is just wrong. You can download a PDF of a textbook on the economics of money, banks, and financial markets (including bonds, i.e. debt) for free. spu.fem.uniag.sk/Marian.Toth/finance/20142015/MBFM.pdf

Sorry, but saying that economists aren’t aware of Matlab et al is absurd.

Economists do not know Matlab exists? Economists learn to use and program in matlab routinely in every mainstream graduate economics a program. Mr Keen talks about economics too confidently relative to his apparent level of knowledge about his economists think and work. Dissapointing, not on par with other presenters in the series...

So basically an economist is a self proclaimed expert in money.

I am pretty happy in Finland. Here Goverment holds monopoly only on most strategical stuff (infra,alkohol, health, education..), I am entrpreneur and I dont feel opressed at all.

Disagree. Read _Economic Harmonies_ by Bastiat. He spends chapters covering the social interdependence aspects of economics, but still comes back to his version of the calculation problem. The problem is always, "who decides?" The reason that individualism must be primary is that only individuals can make choices and abstractions cannot. Keen reiterates this mistake by claiming that the individual and society are somehow at opposite poles. How could anything be more incorrect. Society is strictly, and only, composed of individuals. The answer to "who decides" must always be the individual no matter how much you want to twist it, Keen.

:o

Professors in general aren't the brightest people. Economists are just sad people.

The sooner economic policy is made using Ai software, the better

Can we take the leather jackets from economists?

Economists win Nobel prizes using math first year university physics students use on a daily basis. Economics is a philosophy. The further you move away from the art and closer to math/science...the weaker it gets.

Wow, this guy apparently hasn't read very much economics literature and doesn't know much beyond a few things he picked up while working in the computer industry and reading a couple of Minsky's books. The flow charts he describes are simply a graphical representation of a set of difference or differential equations. (Hint: You don't need matlab or any other software with a GUI to produce these sort of models - fortran or C or any other basic programming language and some really basic math will do). There are so many other problems with the drivel he is spouting, it might be time for him to learn about google, or google scholar or, god forbid, a library. (You are allowed to look in the economics section for books and papers that go beyond Econ 101). Yes there is a lot of talk about equilibria in mainstream economics, as in physics, but there is also a lot of talk about dynamics (as there is in physics) as well. Look up anything about business cycles, growth economics, control of the money supply, wealth accumulation, intergenerational transfers, etc., etc., etc. Good grief...

Who is or what is Valra? I cant find anything about him.

Lmao this guy confuses different streams of economics together. Current Economy is mostly keynesian-Monetarism not neo classical or Austrian economics. So how can you blame neo classical for modern day problems which exist due to Keynesian monetarism policy of printing money out of thin air and constant government meddling to maintain growth? This isn't neo classical. There's barely any neo classical Economist today who's Influential. It's all keynesian like Paul Krugman or monetarists inspired by Milton Friedman. He's say neo classical but is actually criticising a completely different economic stream.

I feel like he kind of knows what he's talking about because he mentioned the needed intelligence level of god... But at the same time he's completely clueless on what capitalism is, because by no possible definition do we have anything resembling it currently.

He talks way too fast, way to professorly. How about an economy in which the majority that must live in it determine what it will be like. An economy in which working persons (whether working or middle class ) must decide on economic measures that immediately determines how they work/wages; on trade, budgets, govt & private enterprise . After all an economy determines our fate whether we create it or let others create one without us knowing how it works. That's we have been convinced the 'ordinary Joes' are too uneducated to understand. The owners determine our fate which determines theirs: non owners stay poor or unfulfilled, owners ignorant, arrogant and dangerous to the planet, but in controlling such as it is.