Steve Keen: Will We Crash Again? Why Capitalism Needs Debt Write-offs to Survive

Published on Sept 7, 2015 "Mainstream economists failed to anticipate the great financial crash of 2007-8. In this talk, Professor Steve Keen will share his view on the bigger picture – including recent financial developments around the world. He will review options for the future of economics, highlight the little-understood importance of debt, and argue that significant debt write-downs are needed in order to limit future financial crashes." - Conway Hall Keen's BIO, quote "I am Professor of Economics and Head of the School of Economics, Politics and History at Kingston University London. I am also a prominent critic of conventional economics. Economics has come under challenge from pundits, the public and students since the 2007 crisis, and so it should. Mainstream economists failed to anticipate the crisis, not because it was an unpredictable “Black Swan”, but because false pre-determined beliefs meant they ignored the cause of the crisis: banks lending too much money to finance speculation rather than investment. I did anticipate the crisis because banks, debt and money play an integral role in my dynamic (as opposed to equilibrium) approach to economics. Many mainstream economists think what I do is more like engineering than economics, and I’m proud of that. My book Debunking Economics explains the many logical and empirical flaws in mainstream (and Marxian) economics without using mathematics. It has been translated into Chinese, French and Spanish. I have about 70 other academic publications." unquote - Steve Keen can be followed on twitter at @profSteveKeen and here at http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/