The Cobden Centre » Events

Are you ready for EuroCrash the musical?

Dr Tim Evans — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:50:11 +0000

I am not joking. It has finally happened. And I want to see it. As reported by Bloomberg, ‘Euro Crash! The Musical’ is coming to town. According to this report this spectacular and timely production “transposes the single-currency story to a deep dark forest. Mark and Gilda can’t find their way out. They are lured into the gingerbread Euroland house, where Papa Kohl and Madame Mitterrand run a school of fiscal discipline attended by some wayward pupils – personified nation states like Callum of Ireland and Stavros of Greece”. The show’s numbers include “a chorus praising the virtues of the Bundesbank and former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont singing “Our currency’s gone down the plughole” in the shower”.

“EuroCrash!” is showing in at the Cockpit Theatre in London from 8 to 11 February 2012 and I am definitely going to see it. For more information and to book your ticket(s) just click here.

How the clash between Keynes and Hayek continues to define the difference between left and right

Toby Baxendale — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:15:01 +0000

I’m pleased to promote another Hayek vs Keynes event at the London School of Economics:

Date: Monday 13 February 2012
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Nicholas Wapshott
Chair: Professor Danny Quah

Eighty years ago at the LSE, Friedrich Hayek launched an assault upon the new economic thinking of John Maynard Keynes. The clash was so bitter and vituperative that it scandalized the cloistered world of academia. Eighty years on, the differences between the two men have still not been finally resolved and their conflicting approaches to the economy continue to define the profound chasm between politicians of left and right.

Nicholas Wapshott is a columnist for Reuters and regular contributor to Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is the author of Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage. He is a former senior editor for The Times and the New York Sun and editorial consultant to Oprah Winfrey.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #lsehvk

Ticket Information

This event is free and open to all however a ticket is required. One ticket per person can be requested on Tuesday 7 February.

See the LSE site for further details.

Is the global economy heading for monetary breakdown?

Dr Tim Evans — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:15:38 +0000

A very exciting upcoming event:

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Economics, Money and Banking and Steve Baker MP in association with The Cobden Centre, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute for Public Policy Research cordially invite you to a discussion on:

Is the Global Economy Heading for Monetary Breakdown?

The Threat Posed by Elastic Paper Money

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Committee Room 6

Palace of Westminster

4.00pm

Steve Baker MP, Chairman and Conservative MP for Wycombe

Dr. Tim Evans, Chief Executive of The Cobden Centre

Detlev Schlichter, author, Paper Money Collapse:

The Folly of Elastic Money and the Coming Monetary Breakdown

Detlev Schlichter’s analysis might be controversial but it is logical and rigorous. Explaining in detail what he believes to be the real causes behind the world’s current economic woes, he paints a frightening picture of the global monetary breakdown he now believes is underway. The event is a must for anyone concerned with the future of the world economy and our society.

All Cobden Centre readers are invited to attend.

Cobdenites will want to attend this Liberty League Conference

Dr Tim Evans — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:18:12 +0000

I am sure that many TCC supporters will want to attend this forthcoming conference organised by the Liberty League.

Not only will it be good for Cobdenites to add their insights but my understanding is that the organisers still have a few non-student places available. But hurry, tickets are going quickly.

The fight of the century redux: Murphy vs. Smith

Toby Baxendale — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 05:00:21 +0000

Exciting news from Mises.org:

The great debate between Keynesians and Austrians enters the digital age with the Mises Academy’s first ever online formal debate, between economists Karl Smith and Robert P. Murphy.

Resolved: Government Spending Can Play an Important Role in Boosting Economic Growth

Smith will argue in favor of this resolution, and Murphy will argue against.

The debate will be held by Webex, and costs $20. It will take place Friday, September 2nd at 1pm UK time, but will be recorded for later viewing.

See here for more details.

Hayek vs Keynes debate rebroadcast

Toby Baxendale — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:45:49 +0000

Back in the ’30s, at the time of the original Keynes-Hayek debate, Hayek had a solid methodological system that could explain the causes of the recession of the late ’20s and early ’30s, and it’s subsequent gyrations, up and down.

The root cause was excessive credit creation by the world’s main central banks, and their fractional reserve private sector mints, the banks. This bank credit was loaned out to businesses who bought extra kit to produce goods and services more efficiently. The boom in producer sectors bid up relative prices for their resources. Higher wages for labour meant more consumption, boosting consumer sectors. This in turn pushed up relative prices in those sectors. Competition for resources bid up prices until no one believed the prices were sustainable — pop goes the mega bubble, and boom turns to bust. This is called the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle.

At the BBC LSE Hayek v Keynes debate, Lord Skidelsky told us that everyone knew it was excess credit that caused this boom, and that this was called the “Treasury View.”

This of course is not true; the noble Lord is misinformed. The Treasury View was advanced by members of the Chancellor’s department saying, in short, that for every increase in public expenditure advocated by Keynesian types to alleviate the Great Depression effects, there would be an equivalent reduction in private sector expenditure that would mean that the net effect in the economy is zero.

Whilst I hold that this is a valid view, it is not one that gives us the theoretical tools to understand why boom and bust happen in the first place. Mises and Hayek gave us these tools with the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle.

Neither the Treasury View, as expounded by the likes of Ralph Hawtrey, nor the Keynesian view were based on a series of logical deductions from root causes. The best Keynes could offer as an explanation for boom and bust was “animal spirits”. He is Theory Lite in this respect.

Unfazed by his shaky foundation, Keynes confidently prescribed how to correct an animal-spirit-induced bust. We are told to spend when the private sector is not spending. Who does this? The government on our behalf. The Treasury View makes clear that it’s futile to tax the private sector in order to spend, so we have the cries from modern day Keynesians to carry on borrowing and spending in order to force a correction . If you haven’t got the correction you desire, you have not borrowed enough! So say the likes of Krugman and Skidelsky, drunk on the intoxicating work of Keynes.

The faulty logic than runs underneath this way of thinking is called the “Circular Flow of Income.” This is now bread and butter in any economics text book. One person’s income, when spent on goods and services, becomes another person’s income. Cut one and you cut all. Therefore, a series of cuts or austerity measures is exactly what you should not be doing at a time of bust; you need to keep everyone’s income up.

Hayek held that relative prices and income where what mattered, not gross aggregates . If a man has an income of £100 and costs of £90, we can say he has a profit of £10. Then recession hits and he has an income of £85 and still costs of £90, so he is sunk by £5. Thus the aim of the man in question, with income of £85 is to get his costs down to under £75 and restore his profitability. As this is done, the foundations for recovery are laid. Even better, if he can get costs to £74, on lower income and a lower costs base, he is in fact more profitable than in the glorious boom times!

In the 5 mins each speaker had in this debate to present their case, some of this came across and some of it did not. Jamie Whyte and George Selgin did a fantastic job at putting forward the case for Hayek. Skidelsky sadly did not represent Keynes very truthfully, for the reasons I have outlined above. Selgin picked him up on various other errors and misrepresentations.

This debate is very relevant for today as no doubt we will be told the current market corrections are “Animal Spirits”, and that the answer is further government intervention.

The BBC tell us the debate had over 1 million listeners and was in their top 5 podcasts. In all my years studying at the LSE and as a donor to it, I have never seen three lecture theatres full of public and students alike. Not even for visiting Heads of State!

This is the debate of our times.

I am delighted to say that the program will be re-run, and they expect another 1.5 millions viewers. Our friend at the Mises Institute, Stephan Kinsella, has blogged all the details here. If you want to educate yourself a little more on these matters, or even if you think you are very familiar with all of the issues, the debate is definitely worth a listen. If you can’t wait for the next BBC broadcast, you can find it online as an MP3.

Since the original broadcast, the debate has continued online. On the 3rd of August, PrimeEconomics published a list of eight alleged fallacies in the Keynes/Hayek debate, drawing a number of responses, including some from George Selgin. On the same day, Selgin posted his own account of the debate at FreeBanking.org. More recently, on the 18th of August, Selgin took up Skidelsky’s suggestion that “no government has ever achieved a speedy recovery from a recession by clamping down on its spending or reducing its indebtedness”, citing the US recovery from a deep recession in 1920. The following day, Skidelsky published his account of the Keynes-Hayek rematch at Project Syndicate, declaring

Except to Hayekian fanatics, it seems obvious that the coordinated global stimulus of 2009 stopped the slide into another Great Depression.

You can read Selgin’s response at FreeBanking.org.

Personally, I look forward to the day when Paul Krugman will come and stand on that same stage where Hayek delivered his famous Prices and Production lectures, and engage in serious debate with Austrian economists. How many lecture theatres would that fill? What global TV audience would it draw?

For those at the BBC and for those at the LSE, I think my next Distinguished Hayek Fellowship Teaching Programme event the LSE should be just this debate, and I would be happy to support and fund whatever I can. I repeat, this is the debate of our times. Only someone of the stature of Krugman can represent Keynes, we need to move this debate up and along now.

Kevin Dowd to speak at Adam Smith Institute

Dr Tim Evans — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:22:29 +0000

Kevin Dowd to speak at Adam Smith Institute

On the evening of Monday 12^th September 2011, TCC Senior Fellow, Professor Kevin Dowd, is giving a talk called ‘The Decapitalization of the West’ hosted by the Adam Smith Institute. Co-author – with Martin Hutchinson – of the recent book, ‘The Alchemists of Loss: How Modern Finance and Government Intervention Crashed the Financial System’, Dowd is one of the world’s best scholars when it comes to free-banking and laissez-faire financial and monetary systems.

Make sure you do not miss this event. For all the relevant details visit this page here and then RSVP via: events@adamsmith.org

Apparently the BBC is having a bit of an Austrian boom

Dr Tim Evans — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:12:47 +0000

As I understand it, BBC Radio 4 bosses liked the recent Keynes versus Hayek debate so much that they are now planning to repeat it at 9am on Tuesday 23^rd August. My understanding is that this repeat broadcast will probably add another 1.5 million listeners to the 1 million who already heard it the first time around. Perhaps part of this decision has been driven by the fact that the programme’s podcast was in the iTunes and politics top five in the UK.

Steve Baker speaks at the Economic Research Council

Dr Tim Evans — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 06:47:25 +0000

TCC board member, Steve Baker, clearly had fun last week when he spoke to some fifty people at the Economic Research Council. Here is a take of the proceedings from the ERC’s web site.

Keynes v Hayek at the LSE

Dr Tim Evans — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:40:11 +0000

This will be interesting. An LSE and BBC Radio 4 public debate on Keynes v Hayek is to be held on Tuesday 26 July 2011 at the LSE Old Theatre, Old Building, between 6.30pm and 8pm. To be chaired by Paul Mason, the speakers are still being confirmed. However, an early email suggests that Professor Lord Skidelsky will be defending Keynes while TCC Advisory Board member Dr. Jamie Whyte will be promoting Hayek.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For any queries email events@lse.ac.uk or call 020 7955 6043.

Media queries: please contact the Press Office if you would like to reserve a press seat or have a media query about this event, email pressoffice@lse.ac.uk

Alternatively, the debate will be transmitted on Wednesday 3rd August, 8pm (repeated on Saturday 6^th August at 10.15pm) on BBC Radio 4.