BHP and Rio agree, Steve Keen is wrong

Discussion in 'Share Investing Strategies, Theories & Education' started by BillV, 23rd Oct, 2008.

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  1. BillV

    BillV Well-Known Member

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    by Michael Pascoe

    Economists can occasionally be dangerous things when radical or simply wrong ideas fall on fertile ground. Karl Marx, for example, never personally hurt anyone that I know of, but some of his ideas eventually helped cause incredible suffering and death.

    Domestically, an associate professor at the University of Western Sydney, Steve Keen, is currently scaring the easily-frightened with especially dire forecasts about the Australian economy. Keen's predictions aren't taken very seriously by most economists, but he's still enjoyed plenty of media attention, much of it unquestioning. Some of my media colleagues are happy to search out the most extreme and alarmist views - they make bigger headlines.

    Keen is predicting the economic equivalent of the earth splitting open, spewing forth fire, toads and serpents, the seas turning to blood, the Four Riders of the Apocalypse loping off random heads and limbs and so on. He represents a tiny minority of economic opinion.

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    BHP and Rio agree, Steve Keen is wrong. - Michael Pascoe - Yahoo!7 Money Matters
     
  2. voigtstr

    voigtstr Well-Known Member

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    I like Pascoe's style.
     
  3. BillV

    BillV Well-Known Member

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    me too,
    I especially liked the sentence where the earth is splitting open...:D
    Cheers
     
  4. islandgirl__

    islandgirl__ Well-Known Member

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    And from the same report
    "Journalists can be as dangerous as economists too when they needlessly scare their audiences and perhaps provoke them into doing the wrong thing. I'm writing this on a flight to Perth and have just watched the Channel 9
    Inflight News with a couple of prime examples."


    This echo's what I have been thinking myself in the last few months. Journalists should be there to factually report and to provide balanced arguments. The crap coming out of the media these days has done nothing but panic masses and send us even further on the road of economic doom. In the days of instant global reporting it would be fair to say that the media sensationism is NOT helping.

    If you want to start putting some reason into the markets don't bother meeting with the world leaders - have meetings with the real world leader - Rupert Mudock and co.
     
  5. Johnny Golden

    Johnny Golden New Member

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    It doesn't sound to me like Pascoe has even listened to Steve Keen. Keen has consistently argued that, while Australia's high private debt levels are a ticking time bomb, our resource exports to the growth economies of China et al will soften the blow.

    And while it is obvious that journos have been (and always will) seek dramatic angles, especially during crises, and that there are always perma-bears who eventually have their day in the sun... don't the legions of "mainstream economists" who were completely blindsided by the current meltdown have something to answer for?
     
  6. AsxBroker

    AsxBroker Well-Known Member

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    Hi IslandGirl,

    I totally agree with you (you beat me to copy + paste ;) ).

    The media only gets our attention when it's usually over-sensationalised. Otherwise it gets drowned out by all the other noise...

    Cheers,

    Dan