The world leaders met at Davos and discussed climate change. Greta Thunberg told them they weren’t doing enough, even though the President of the United States promised to plant some more trees and warned against the doomsayers with their predictions of the apocalypse. So, will there be an apocalypse. Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve Keen, arguing that he could be seen as one of the lefty Marxists who is using the climate change agenda to unsettle capitalism. And if we are to avoid the apocalypse, and planting trees isn’t enough, what should we be doing. What should have been said at Davos?

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US equities, in fact shares around the world, seem to be running away with themselves right now. Is this healthy? And who wins, other than the investors who sell before the price tops out? This week Phil Dobbie talks to Prof Steve Keen about the relationship between shareholder value and the growth and productivity of the company’s shareholders are buying in to. Is part of the problem that the system promotes the managerial class, rather than incentivises entrepreneurs?

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Who’d have thought it – Steve Keen and Phil Dobbie turn out to be a couple of royalists. As Harry and Megan prepare to chuff off to Canada, and royal-watchers have been decrying the whole thing as one massive constitutional crisis, we use it all as an opportunity to ask whether the royal family is worth keeping at all. The expectation was that one or other of our podcasters would have it in for the royals, but after looking at the numbers they both agree it’s better to stick with what we know. After all, they’re great for tourism and only cost us a quid a year each.

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2019 was quite a year. We had the ongoing Brexit saga, the US China trade war, Europe close to recession and a big housing downturn in Australia. It was capped off with some of the worst bushfires ever seen. Phil Dobbie asks Prof Steve what this year has in store for us? if austerity has gone will we see a bright future for Britain, or will it be dragged down by Brexit? Is this the year that Donald Trump gets re-elected, or will the US economy take a turn for the worst and drag him down with it? And will housing in Australia bounce back and see their economy back on the upward trajectory? Or not? And climate change – is this the year we finally start to take notice?

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It’s taken us a few years to tackle the obvious topic for the Debunking Economics podcast, what are the biggest failings of neoclassical economics. Prof Steve Keen tells Phil Dobbie that it starts on page one of rudimentary economics textbooks, which the idea of the demand curve.  Having debunked that, he moves on to the capital market line, used to determine investment decisions. Then it’s the models being used to determine the impact of climate change. Then the concept of diminishing marginal productivity. And finally, the process of simplifying assumptions. Having dismissed all the major tenants of economics Phil asks Steve if there any laws that apply to the ‘science’, in the same way that gravity applies to physics. Or is it all lost in the realm of unproven speculation?

This is a FREE edition of the Debunking Economics podcast. To hear the full version subscribe of other episodes pick a plan in the right column of the Debunking Economics website (not the mobile app). Or become a supporter at https://www.patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen