Credit supply shocks: Where do they come from, and what are their effects?

Presenter: Atif Mian, Princeton University
Discussant: Karen Dynan, Harvard University
Learn more: www.ineteconomics.org/events/...

[@Frank-cj3nh]

Steve Keen, Randell Wray, and other followers of Minksy were presenting this type of research 10+ years ago with 1/5 the resources than these ivy league careerists! Damn shame.

[@MyDadWasALifeguard]

Frank O'Neal exactly!

[@brentshuffler1234]

There is no question about the reality of growing inequality (especially in the U.S.A.). However, the greater issue surrounds individual choices, habits, and attitudes. No matter how big or small one's income is, one has a daily choice about saving versus spending, investing for the long term versus short-term consumption, and patiently planning, budgeting, and saving towards one's goals (e.g., home-ownership, car-ownership, higher education, entrepreneurship) rather than going into debt.

[@hyperbolic3833]

People are equipped with monkey brains, psychology is all about documenting how many mistakes and bad assumptions our brains make irrespective of income, IQ, race and gender. This focus on individuals' choices is not a reliable solution to anything and just offloads systemic problems onto individuals who a random section of always have and always will make some important bad choices. We need to build systems that minimise the impact of these bad choices as we can never escape them as they are built into our species and are inevitable. With that said we can improve the choices available to people through education but we can't stop people making bad choices.

[@hyperbolic3833]

Saving is just harder now as capital is reasserting itself as dominant over labour after the blip of the post war years so the price of housing is rising massively compared to wages. Easiest way to buy a house is to have a boomer relative die as they benefited from the post war power of labour and were able to build up a decent amount of capital.

[@hyperbolic3833]

Instead of telling people they need to make better choices eliminate the bad ones. Restrict and control lending, prevent companies filling food with unhealthy junk, restrict greenhouse gas emissions by large companies. This is how we make the world better, not by constantly chastising people for poor choices but helping them to make better ones. The prison system is another example of this as we should really be focusing that on reducing offending/re-offending rates not "making sure people get what they deserve". Our current focus on justice instead of rehabilitation isn't as effective as it could be at reducing crime rates and definitely harms the economy by making it really hard for offenders to find gainful employment and reintegrate into society after committing offences.

[@brentshuffler1234]

@@hyperbolic3833 where you are wrong is that you're saying not to look at individuals but personal spending in the U. S. A. Is about 70% of G. D. P. Secondly, individuals spend and borrow and these are personal choices and reflect personal attitudes and habits. People have much more choice than you are acknowledging. People are not just hapless victims or mindless children. They are adults who can learn excellent habits, can learn how to make better decisions, and change over time. The key is education in personal finance. The earlier we start, the better for the whole society and economy. E.g., credit-unions rather than big banks; cooperative principles; avoiding debt from the time that we start to earn our first business or job. Millions of families have done these things and succeeded at all ages, stages of life, all minorities, all ethnicities. Let us stop making generalised blaming of systems and realise the true power lies inside each of us.

[@brentshuffler1234]

@@hyperbolic3833 I completely agree with these examples that you just highlighted. So there is a role for Government to work at the macro prudential level. Meanwhile, many of these things have roots in our daily habits and choices. That is why I have seen the benefits of working with schools, with credit unions, with churches, with community-based groups, et cetera, to prevent and to reverse the negative things and to promote the good things e.g., (1) planting gardens instead of buying all our food; . . . (2) supporting local farmers instead of huge commercial interests such as hegemonic Monsanto that has been spreading poisons and displacing ecological diversity to propagate its profit-driven monoculture; . . . (3) teaching the proven principles of responsible personal finance, with highly successful programmes that empower individuals and families to get out of debt, to save and to invest, to budget effectively, and to achieve worthwhile goals.

[@thomasdarlington4916]

I take issue with the statement that there is no such thing as "net credit." There clearly can be. When one take out credit from a Bank, that effectively creates money.

[@MyDadWasALifeguard]

Thomas Darlington ..no ..the total dollar amount of credit given or received is a gross number

[@brentshuffler1234]

If we follow highly successful programmes and trends such as [1] the F.I.R.E. (financial independence and early retirement) movement, [2] Chris Hogan (Everyday Millionaires, the largest study ever done of U.S. millionaires, revealing that the vast majority are ordinary citizens who used a few good habits to build wealth over time), and [3] Dave Ramsey (30 years of public education and community-based programmes on personal finance), we can build [a] a low-debt to debt-free next generation [b] with sustainable lifestyles, [c] with very low financial risk, and therefore [d] a much more stable economy, [e] a more equitable and balanced society, and [f] a generous giving and sharing culture (as people grow real wealth and are comfortable to give to others, versus being highly stressed, worried, and self-centered as they face economic uncertainty and high levels of personal debt).

[@MrOliverwoods]

the camera man needs to turn off the camera’s sound and only have the feed from the speaker