Keen is hardly neutral

[alexlee]

Thats true, the odds were that the govt would do something. But is was not definite at the time. And as you say - noone knew the results until after the fact.

Australia did enter this with better fundamentals in terms of trade and so on, but that was no guarantee. Just because you have a strong levee doesn't mean you'll survive because you don't know how big the wave is. Turned out, though, that we did pretty well. But only after the size of the problem was known, and it wasn't at the time it was happening.

Can be seen plainly now that it was overdone for such a small population/GDP with the RBA raising rates. The only country in the world raising.

In retrospect, yes. But given how totally freaky the market got during that time.... the risk was in doing too little. Besides, compared to most other countries, I wouldn't consider 'stimulated it too much and now have to raise rates to calm it down' a bad result. If / when the next wave hits, we then have more scope to cut rates again.
Alex

 

[Sunfish]

Aussie, it does sound as if you are saying that you would need to be a fool to accept anything posted on this site, not being Drs or Profs and all, and all posted by folk with vested interest.

Personally, I agree. Most of the "opinion" given here is poor and some dangerous, none with disclaimers.

 

[LisaP]

Never send your kids to UWS.

Oi! I'm from UWS! A little bit of a broad sweeping statement don't you think?

Seeing an impending financial disaster is not hard to do. There is a little part of all of us that know it will probably happen. So one doesnt need to be nostradamus. Markets are cyclical, assets bubble occassionally - period!

Plus its only a 3 horse race. Market goes up, market stays neutral, market goes down!

The point about keen is that he may see it coming (as we all do) but he is hardly as neutral as he claims to be.

I agree. I do think we will see price drops and price stagnation in different areas of Oz within two-three years time, but that's just the natural cyclical nature of the property (and stock) market. Markets go up, markets go sideways, markets go down...repeat.

 

[evand]

Thats an unfair analogy for starters but i'll believe neither, i believe the facts. But you still didn't answer my question.

Hi Evand

If I try and sell you a miracle hair loss treatement - who you gonna believe - someone called Mr John Doh or Doctor John Doh!

 

[aussierogue]

Hi Sunfish

No - I take advise on this forum all the time so I hope its not foolish.

Its about making informed decisisions and informed necessarily means knowing where the information is coming from. that way the user can weigh up its usefulness. Its enough for me to know that the inormation in this website is skewed. Hence I take that onboard - no need for individual disclaimers.

Check the financial papers - Journos often talk about stocks and then at the end of an article declare if they own any. Its standard procedure! They ethically and legally have to do this!

The point about being a professor is important because anyone making claims and using a qualification to back them up has a double duty to declare their position. Why? Because they are claiming expert status.

 

[aussierogue]

Evand - see my post above about DUTY to declare.

The hair loss is not an unfair example at all. More people buy the hair loss product if a doctor sells it! Keen is selling ideas he has a vested interest in. Not so hard to understand surely!

 

[evand]

Mate, he's not selling ideas. He's an academic with an opinion. That's all. Whats his vested interest by the way?

He had a unit in Surry Hills and sold it.

I think emotion clouds some peoples rational view point.

Evand - see my post above about DUTY to declare.

The hair loss is not an unfair example at all. More people buy the hair loss product if a doctor sells it! Keen is selling ideas he has a vested interest in. Not so hard to understand surely!

 

[aussierogue]

Evand you obviously did not read the article. Read my first post!

You are in a fighting mood i can tell! A duel may be in order!

 

[Belbo]

Of course Keene has a vested interest!

He financially exists in the marketplace of ideas. If his ideas are deemed nonsense, his academic credibility will be damaged, his career prospects hurt, his earnings potential crimped and his social status in ivory-towerdom diminished.

Just because he's an academic doesn't mean he's motivated by acting exclusively in the 'universal' interest of improving human society's knowledge.

He has very real personal interests that he has to defend every day of his academic life. ''Publish or perish!" is a very serious risk if no-one will publish your drivel.

No academic (in the social sciences) is 'neutral', because they're human and have a legitimate moral centre of gravity that always influences their work. Just as no judge is neutral, despite their best professional efforts to be impartial, no academic can be without a point of view.

Keene's personal and political interests however override his obligation to express professional impartiality, he is crusading out of professional desperation to promote his personal agenda, he is willfully confusing the 'is'with the 'ought'to be', and the only thing saving his job is that his GenY audience celebrates his anti-establishment-arianism because that's what students of every generation gullibly do.

He has a massively vested interested in being a cause celebre doomsayer - it's his living on the line!

 

[evand]

Can we stick to the subject matter please?

Evand you obviously did not read the article. Read my first post!

You are in a fighting mood i can tell! A duel may be in order!

 

[aussierogue]

Evand - are you kidding! Very RATIONAL.........lighten up!

Thanks for the backup Belbo

 

[Francesco]

Of course Keene has a vested interest!

He financially exists in the marketplace of ideas. If his ideas are deemed nonsense, his academic credibility will be damaged, his career prospects hurt, his earnings potential crimped and his social status in ivory-towerdom diminished.

Just because he's an academic doesn't mean he's motivated by acting exclusively in the 'universal' interest of improving human society's knowledge.

He has very real personal interests that he has to defend every day of his academic life. ''Publish or perish!" is a very serious risk if no-one will publish your drivel.

No academic (in the social sciences) is 'neutral', because they're human and have a legitimate moral centre of gravity that always influences their work. Just as no judge is neutral, despite their best professional efforts to be impartial, no academic can be without a point of view.

Keene's personal and political interests however override his obligation to express professional impartiality, he is crusading out of professional desperation to promote his personal agenda, he is willfully confusing the 'is'with the 'ought'to be', and the only thing saving his job is that his GenY audience celebrates his anti-establishment-arianism because that's what students of every generation gullibly do.

He has a massively vested interested in being a cause celebre doomsayer - it's his living on the line!

Yes, an academic is expected to practise the science of his trade as taught to his students. If the academic demonstrates publicly a way of practice that is recklessly ignoring the key parameters of his area of expertise, and consequently failed spectacularly, it surely would be cause for concern to prospectice employers of his students whether they are appropriately grounded in objectivity and scholarship.

 

[natecv8]

Yes, an academic is expected to practise the science of his trade as taught to his students. If the academic demonstrates publicly a way of practice that is recklessly ignoring the key parameters of his area of expertise, and consequently failed spectacularly, it surely would be cause for concern to prospectice employers of his students whether they are appropriately grounded in objectivity and scholarship.

Not just that it should cause concern, but that if these students are taught that economics is a hunch and not a science, just wait until 10 years later when one of them IS your advisor, or banker, or Reserve board member.

I find it amusing that Mr Robertson, a practitioner in an industry in which Prof Keen is a scholar, was able to humiliate the man simply by avoiding the passionate emotional response - some people may see that the wager was even (heads you win, tails I win) but infact Prof Keen was wagering that the market would drop 40% within a year, something both unprecedented in this country and without hard economics to back it up.
Mr Robertson simply wagered that this would not happen. What an astute position, hell I am no economist but if Mr Keen came to me with such a proposal and was willing to put down some money, I would gladly take him up on the offer. Yes, maybe I'm a gambling fool, but those odds are so many times better than lotto or the casino, why wouldn't I?

 

[aussierogue]

Keen may very well be right. Its just that he is not impartial.

 

[Sunfish]

I don't mind Uni Profs speaking up because they could reasonably be expected not to have axes to grind.

I have not read much of this debate but if you are saying he is partial because he sold his unit and is therefore a player in the market, that's a pretty weak argument.

In the AGW debate, for example, I put more weight on the opinions of tenured/retired profs than I do those receiving research grants, who I do not trust.

 

[dan c]

If the government didn't pour billions into stimulus and RBA lower rates to 50 a year record, introduce the FHBG boos etc etc, Keen could have been correct.

Surely an economist of Mr Keen's standing (he's a good economist, so he keeps telling us) should have seen the govt intervention! He also predicted the lowering of interest rates; he thought they would go to zero, so you can hardly include that as a reason as to why he was so wildly wrong re: property prices.

 

[tcocaro]

For Keen to beleive prices are going to fall, it stands to reason that by default he beleives they are too high. However I do see your point given his loosely held argument has been to argue prices will fall as a result of de-leveraging which means todays price are neither "too high" or "too low" but rather unsustainable if he is too be beleived.

I have given up arguing against his individual points because each in isolation "sounds sensible" but his views are encased in a vacum where nothing changes, governments stand idly by etc etc. Its just an idiotic stance. Its almost as if he thinks we are all frogs and will simply cook boil ourselves to death if the heat increases slowly.

People will always take the stance that by dismissing Keen you are simply cherry picking who you listen too and not having a balanced argument. However thats like saying people who think the world is flat should be allowed to enter into scientific discussions in order to acheive a "balanced argument".

There is a point where you say enough is enough, and that point was reached long ago with this moron.

What I find interesting about this article and Keen himself is that he has declared his 'emotional' hand. Not only does he think that housing prices will drop but he he 'thinks' that housing prices are too high!

Hardly a neutral position. If for example the Prof saw nothing wrong with high prices yet he belived the market was in a bubble then fair enuf. If he did not have a view either way (house prices are eithe too high or low) - fair enuf. But because he has an open view and then spends hours trying to pove it - well thats not a very academic approach is it! Wonder if he had 5 houses and 2 million in debt - if he would be so vocal!

http://www.theage.com.au/business/walking-warning-on-crazy-house-prices-20100216-o4h5.html

 

[tcocaro]

Evand, howly cow mate... if god himself came down and said your wrong you would probably look him straight in the eye and say BUT....

Seriously mate, "If the government didn't pour billions ", if it wasnt for the stimulus, if it wasnt for this... if it wasnt for that...

Have you read a single economics book in your life? What did you expect governments to do? Not spend perhaps follow milton and go all neo classical? And not spend in recession but rather save and send us to oblivion?

Seriously a first grade economics teacher would have told you that when the recesion is about to hit, interest rates will drop, governments will spend in order to acheive a soft landing.

If Keen didnt factor this in, then hes a bigger moron than what I think he already is. Your argument is pure rubbish.. sorry evand but you have carried this same incoherent dribble for longer than i can remmeber.. be a man admit your wrong and try and do something new for a change and learn something.

If the government didn't pour billions into stimulus and RBA lower rates to 50 a year record, introduce the FHBG boos etc etc, Keen could have been correct.

If anyone on here can say they predicted the (overcooked) stimulus and the resultant increase in property prices, please put your hand up.

If not, get over your self guys.