Nice analysis. The attempts of finance to prop up over-borrowing by more borrowing are pathetic and destructive. The media coverage is appalling and the government has been asleep at the wheel.
Now we have riots in England, partially caused by the economic policy of bailing out the private system and paying for it by hitting the middle class and poor with "austerity measures". There has been a lot of waste and destructive welfare, social stresses and the like but I reckon the poor and middle class will not like bailing out billionaires and millionaires much anywhere!
Time to let the risky speculators pay their debts, time to let the "too big to fail" fail. Time to get our financial system working on real accounting instead of Ponzi-land finance.
Alas, this requires a different mindset to the "leaders" who think that manufacturing and finance are interchangeable, welfare is for all, and its a Good Thing to make money using debt driven inflation.
Public economics is more dismal than it needs to be because it is rarely separated from politics...which is more about vested interests and rhetoric than honest profession.
Here's hoping your housing predictions come to pass soon Steve!

It's a very interesting analysis of what has happened, but excuse me when I do not put any faith or currency in the predictions for the future.

It seems everyone is in the prophecy game at the moment, and this is no exception .. the economists of past have been absolutely abysmal at forecasting, why would that change now?

I do admire though the confidence and commitment of prophets (to their prophecies), I guess that's where the money is made, certainly not from the actual predictions.

Already today, the news shows this article, is going to be quite incorrect in its cheery ending "Welcome to the Bear Market and the Second Great Contraction"

Amicus: Economic prediction is indeed a bit pointless, but that doesn't mean all analysis is untrustworthy. Economists like Steve allowed me to avoid the 2008 "GFC" and we saw this one coming months ago. I've lost none of my super, and done nicely on gold and silver. Read the Money Morning website old posts...they have predicted this exact scenario for months. These guys also warn that with the non-transparent government manipulation, what "should* happen often doesn't. This doesn't mean the theory is wrong...just that the inevitable can be put off and the pain spread out from the sector that caused it. It is incompetent governments that allow this.
The last couple of decades have seen unprecedented manipulation of markets, particularly money markets by governments and giant international banks. Just recently HSBC and another bank was caught manipulating the silver market. Interest rates have been cynically set to benefit the very few at the cost of the masses.
Economists and industry (not to mention workers) *should* have a much more predictable environment...but the magic of finance means that real-world factors are easily over-ridden by the whims of the finance oligarchs, who reap large fractions of GDP simply by dipping into the wealth flow at whim. Parasites indeed!

Good article and I agree with you Ozandy.

The press have been appalling in analysing and reporting so I have been reverting to the internet to get my information for the last couple of years. This has proved to be extraordinarily prescient.

How curing debt by creating more of it is quite beyond my comprehension. Now we have a situation where the amount to be repaid is impossible, particularly in the USA, so the only solution is to debase the currency (already underway) or default. This is gradually dawning on the population and why they are turning to bullion which has maintained its buying power for the last 4,000 years and is not a fiat currency that has no intrinsic value.

I went to the good professor's web site, and saw he is promoting a lecture tour by Ann Pettifor. He introduces her thusly:

"Ann Pettifor is one of the handful of economists who predicted and warned about the financial crisis of 2007 well before it happened."

What surprised me is who was sponsoring this tour. I thought it would be a conservative think tank, or maybe a highly conservative politician who is against debt like Barnaby Joyce, or perhaps a company from the financial sector. Nope. It's the Unions, Labor and the Greens. From the web site:

Melbourne - Co-sponsored by Victorian Trades Hall Council, SEARCH Foundation and the National Tertiary Education Union.

Brisbane - Supported by Senators Claire Moore and Larissa Waters and QLD MP Evan Moorhead and co-sponsored by the SEARCH Foundation, Queensland Conservation Council and the Green Institute.

Sydney - Co-sponsored by the SEARCH Foundation, Climate Action Network Australia, Catalyst, Greenpeace Australia-Pacific, Australian Services Union ...

So much for stereotypes.

I think they should try having a quiet word their local girl in Queensland, Anna Bligh. Her government would have taken us from a sound position to $80 billion in debt in 2014.

In Australia, it is certain that the Commonwealth has the power over the states regarding the use of wealth. What restrictions the Commonwealth makes, affects the ability of the way the states can work, so the states cannot operate efficiently if the Commonwealth has not put the right tax or any other controls in order. Quite bluntly, the top personal tax had already been shown to have to be at about 65% and it follows that to get the required 30% of GDP, it needs a zero tax on about $30,000. Unfortunately not one of the treasurers since Harold Holt has had the intelligence or integrity to take on this decision, they would sooner see the industries destroyed along with the farms etc and the wage earners getting kicked out of their homes because they could only get two or three days work a week and couldn’t pay their mortgage on the house. Unfortunately for the US, the same requirements exist there; I understand that George Bush reduced the top personal tax from about 70% to the 35% when he was the President, and this has been the downfall or the country. Quite bluntly the top personal tax has to be approximately 65% and there needs to be zero tax on about $30,000, but not one person has “lowered” his perspective to do such a horrible thing, just think what his associates would think of him, allowing lowly workers to obtain any income without having to pay tax.

Steve Keen, how come you failed mention the elephant in the room...'government' itself, how its work(monitoring and punishing), spending's(its increasing staff and cost) and tax burden(pay for its existence) affects both the consumer and asset prices that you defined in your article...

and what if 'Government' in current form removed, completely replaced by mandatory service of population in their government for limited time...with no permanent positions in government...you with me?...the economic benefits...

Background to those who need it...
Imagine if you will(yeah, Tom in Last Samurai)...a bankrupt government...almost happened in Greece recently when Greeks lining outside their banks to take aoll their money out...what this means...when its spending exceeds its purpose...

well...democracy creates three parts, parliament, judiciary, and government...now our beloved media spends say 80%coverage on first, and 19%second...almost nothing on third...we the population know nothing of how the government is doing its job of executing the laws given by parliament to them...yeah, some vague court case once in a while...thats it...

In a proper democracy, government is completely transparent and without personality(no vested interest in itself, like a car...without driver(laws) it can do nothing)...meaning you(citizen)can walk into any government office and demand to monitor how it works...you try it, and Ill see you on the next headlines as terrorist attacks government department...so no transparency...

now drive to keep increasing taxes, direct and indirect(fines\fees\rates etc)...carbon tax and 72billion raised per latest advertisement(polluters are taxed, but we the consumers will pay for all indirectly)...so 'government' wants more money, while 'produces' very little creativity, so money goes to monitoring and supervising and punishing(fines/litigation)...and 'wants' more to keep doing same while tax burden is already suppressing economy...means it has a 'personality'...so second requirement of democratic government fails...dont forget whatever party is ruling, we are constantly 'governed' by same government which never changes...so no such thing as 'Julia's government' that media confuse us with...

see why this issue needs reassessment...house of cards...or to rephrase this at extreme...drop government services till drops below say 5% of current(huge) expenditure...where will the extra freed money flow?...

sam...

I Was born in England in Birmingham and was 34 when I arrived in Perth and agree with
Oxandy about what is happening in my home town and London, in which I have worked .

"Now we have riots in England, partially caused by the economic policy of bailing out the private system and paying for it by hitting the middle class and poor with "austerity measures". There has been a lot of waste and destructive welfare, social stresses and the like but I reckon the poor and middle class will not like bailing out billionaires and millionaires much anywhere"

The Age news paper has done a 6 monthly survey of 20 economists for the last 10 years . Steve Ken was the only economist predicting the current mess in his predictions of economic data, which Is why he makes sense. Indeed the bogy advice by other economists in the news papers could and did not forcast the currect mess.

The Republican Party mad house inherited from George created the current mess in the US and abject failure stand behind Obama who is the commander in chief of the military but is powerless as leader of economy when there is an economic crisis. We will see street violence in the US like in the UK if the Republics win the next US election

Why is it that when political social systems fail people, mainly due to themselves by voting left, cry out it's the Tea Party's fault. Look at Australia, people vote in Labor & when things go haywire they blame the conservatives. It's your own fault, don't you ever learn for crying out loud. Eat what you have sown & stop interfering with our lives, we did the the right thing, you didn't.

i note the 500 'point fall un uk lastnight
WHERE IS THE FULL WEIGHT OF THE LAW
for the real criminals?

here are the pratts of society
getting more govt bauilouts
for the kids to pay off..via the public purse

AND NOT A COP IN SIGHT

we need to find the cancer..in the market
and trust true capitalists..cut it out

NO MORE SOCIALISTIC bail;outs
this time

oh and that applies to juliar too
and wayne the swan tosser...

if the 'market'[gambling den]
falls more than 5 % today..

declare
a crime scene..

THEN..send in the FULL WEIGHT OF THE LAW..!

or you too
will be getting 'tough on kiddy crime'
while bailing out..the true criminal's

bah
wouldnt urinate on the lot of ya
even if the markette was taking a swan dive

much better to jail kids
for stealing a pair of socks
full the jails with petty crime
while wholesale colluded market crime gets a bailout

is it better..to jail kids for stealing a pair of reebocks
than to jail the moneyed elites stealing our savings..?

[OUR compulsory super subsidy]..
is going up in dust today]..
again...[then the next bailout]

FULL WEIGHT MATE..of the law
by the rule of law
nothing less

make ALL abusers pay
not just kids..with bad lawyers

YEAH i know
BUT the rich got lawyers
the kids dont

[we cant treat white collar crims
the same as kids..who dont got any right's/lawyers

got nothing but oibligation
to pay off the bailout payoffs..via 'austerity meaures
and giving tax breaks..to ya mates]

bah
talk about splinters in ya eyes
when mr camera-on..got the scales of just/us..plasterd on his eyes

while tilting
the scale of justice into injustus

put them in the pilary
then let us pilory them
kids get their mugs in 6 pasges of news papers
and the bailout mob get honours and nice bonus...

it was fun
let try to give the dead cat
another run..[more mates rates bailouts will surelie come]

treason son?

Steve Keen is not keen to answer last post 'where will the extra freed money flow?"...answer my fellow Australians is...into bank oligarchs...

little explanation here...we see banks as lending with calculated risk for profit...so you have $100, I need $10, I borrow from you for one year and pay back $11...simple right...

but you invade into my private life, see why I need the money, then see a way to have power and influence over me...then agree to lend providing I give you 10% of my future income till loan paid...then interfere indirectly with my business to prevent/difficult to pay...so control my business by stealth...so banks(private individuals/families) use 'money' to usurp power of the people...watch US to see what I mean as it unfolds...(expecting us dollar to stop being world reserve currency...)

dont panic, just take the facts,ignore conclusions from link that comes with its own warnings of causing stress...and they seem to link information to financial gain...you know what I mean...

http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1103PSIEOAVD/PPSIM640/PR

so if we head to another crisis...and beloved government through parliament wants to join with all other world governments to form one unified world currency...as the solution...and refuse to listen to the majority of us the people...then warning bells must ring loud and we must act...as no other sign is more clear that the government no longer represents the people...

safest for us the 'people' is move away from using money...yep, root of all evil...why because money(or legal tender) is a privately owned product...true, of the Crown(same Crown as Crown land of Australia)...will always be a tool of control...but bartering is unrealistic...me thinks change the reserve value(currently us dollar) to something natural that must always owned by the 'people' that no law can remove ownership&possession...I suggest natural forests by hectares...its defined and hectares given unified value world over...and each country wealth is proportional to it...so every country immidiately develop large areas of forest...while keep in balance farming and grazing needs and population...carbon problem solved...world economy should stabilize in time...and prevent abuse...as any satellite would would show forest...

and mandatory public service in previous post prevents re_abuse...

sam

sam said..""'where will the extra freed money flow?"...answer my fellow Australians is...into bank oligarchs...""

you missed out mentioning..that great invention
'fractional reserve lending'

that leverages any cash income[loged with the fed]
50 times....[so two precent with the fed
CREATES..the 98%..they lend to us

""then see a way to have power and influence over me...
then agree to lend providing I give you 10%
of my future income till loan paid...""

but the loan wasnt lent...from egsisting money
our deposit to the bank..that they lodged with the fed
CREATED the credit

its a great scam
you couldnt let go0vt do when 'legal tender'..needed to be in real assets[gold silver copper]

but id [possable if you only got cyber credits on a computa
or bits of coloured paper [costing only 7 cents each to print

thing is they didnt lend anything
our promise to repay the debt..CREATED the credit
enterd the books as a tradeable commodity..with value
and the debt owed..under threat of seazure of assets

""then interfere indirectly with my business""

or as is now the case globally
GOVERNMENTS neding credit to BORROW money AT INTREST
to govts who serve the money changers adgenda

now do we se why jesus upturned the tables of the 'money changers'
and the red sky prophicy predicts in the end people will try to eat paper

the scam is built on a wing and a prayer
unless govt can create its own fractional reserve acces to credit
we are affectivly enslaved..by the money changers

jesus was eright
lets let them upset their own tables this time
then govt take back the mint..and issue its own coin-age


and mandatory public service
prevents re_abuse...

[as all will only be paid in REAL value metal coin]