The End of Capitalism : Guardian Lecture

[tomhitchman]

I had a stroll down to the new Kings Place in Kings Cross for this Tuesday night and here are some comments I picked up on the night:

Will Hutton:

- "The efficient market hypothesis is the biggest mistake the world has ever made"

- He mentioned that there are figures showing that the US property prices had never gone down since 1945 before the recent downturn.

- On the wholesale money markets he suggested that the belief in these was "a sea that would never go away"

- The markets have been wilting for the last 4 or 5 days and the market does not know why

- "We must go beyond quantative easing - must be compelled to print money"

-"Must stabilise property first before stabilising other things"

Onother speaker who I missed his name:

- on banking " the task of our generation is to create robust systems"

- he suggested that the merrygo round of financial instruments was a bit like playing 'old maid' passing the toxic waste around

- Derivatives "Weapons of Maths Destruction"

Ann Petifor (from New Economics Foundation author of "the coming 1st world debt crisis"):

- OECD report "debt is at record levels but wealth is growing even faster"

- daft "asking the same economists for the solutions [as the ones who got us into this mess]"

The amazing pop up Vince Cable:

- "in the next 2 weeks 2 if not 3 of our banks will be nationalised.

- "nobody understood the full magnitude of this disaster" of which there are 3 elements

1) Lack or historical understanding
cycles occur in capitalism, property, commodities, output and employment, well discussed in John Steward Miln and Marx also Fukiyama (spelling?) "the end of history"

2) Euphoria - wild boom, herd/crowd instinct, few had the courage to challenge - best book on this is Minsky.

3) Complexity "an opaque screen"

Cable said the FSA was fully briefed on the 'high risks' in Northern Rock in 2002.

-------------

In the discussion that followed one of the panel said that although Keynsian economics is best known for the fiscal he had other elements that have largely been forgotten the most important of which is:

"Money should be cheap, it is not a commodity, and should be freely available, therefore interest rates should always be low"

-----------------

NB the end of capitalism lecture was postponed from earlier in the month because of snow.

[Prono 007]

Did anyone mention peak oil?

[tomhitchman]

No mention of peak oil at all.

I must admit thought there would be more reaction to:

Derivatives : Weapons of Maths destruction. I thought it was very clever.

[Prono 007]

No mention of peak oil at all.

Jeez, that's remarkable. I'd have thought that would have been seen as the major cause of 'the end of capitalism'. Without resource depletion there seems no reason why capitalism couldn't be continued in the future.

[emordnilap]

No mention of peak oil at all.

Jeez, that's remarkable. I'd have thought that would have been seen as the major cause of 'the end of capitalism'. Without resource depletion there seems no reason why capitalism couldn't be continued in the future.

That's because there's only one 'r' in your name.

[DominicJ]

In the discussion that followed one of the panel said that although Keynsian economics is best known for the fiscal he had other elements that have largely been forgotten the most important of which is:

"Money should be cheap, it is not a commodity, and should be freely available, therefore interest rates should always be low"

He also had a rather Hitlerite view on Jews.
I do wonder, if money is freely available, why would anyone exchange something that isnt, for it?