Steve Keen wants to "eliminate economics before it eliminates society". He talks to us about how mainstream economics is directly linked to climate change. We also chat about the current state of UK politics and society, and why Steve thinks 'stockholder value' is utter bullshit. (that’s shareholder value to us Brits).

A Professor of Economics and Author - his latest book being 'The New Economics’ Steve was the winner of the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review for being the economist “who first anticipated and gave public warning of the Global Financial Collapse in 2008, and whose work is most likely to prevent another one in the future.”

BWB is powered by Oury Clark

I can't hear anything.

Ah, that's cuz it's not plugged in that.

I'll do that to you.

Ah, no, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in.

Hello and welcome to Business Without Bullshit.

I'm Andy Ri and alongside me as my co-host Pippa Stir.

Hi Andy.

Today we are joined by Steve Keene.

Good names.

Steve Keem.

How you doing?

Yeah, the number of, if I, the usual stripes, if the number of time people have said, oh, you are keen to me it was, I got a pound for each.

I'd probably own the Bank of England.

I'm just pleased that I could pronounce it.

That's what I'm happy about.

And, and, and it's, and it's an enthusiastic name.

It is very keen.

You don't want, like, Steve, oh, what's the opposite of keen miserable Syle waffle.

You wouldn't he wouldn't be able to on that as a surname down a telephone in.

You'll be there for hours.

Steve is a professor of economics and an author of numerous books, his latest being The New Economics, and You are Winner of the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review for being the economist who first anticipated and gave public warning of the global financial collapse and whose work is most likely to prevent another one in the future.

Okay, so you are the canary in the coal mine.

Yeah.

I'm back in the coal mine again because the coal mine, unfortunately, the, the canaries didn't get to take over.

The discipline and the, you've still got the flat-footed eagles like Bernanke and co in charge of the damn thing.

So my warning went totally without effect on, on policy and has totally no effect afterwards.

On the nature of economics, I think no effect is, is is probably, uh, slightly unfair on yourself, but all, all of our impacts are negligible unless you're for some reason Kanye West or something, you know, it's like that's, that's the thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I should be a rep artist.

I'd do much better.

Is it really infuriating?

So keep saying these things incredibly infuriating because you just, when you, you see the saying there's a cliff.

You're going straight towards a cliff.

There's a cliff.

There's a cliff.

Hi.

How's it at the bottom?

At the cliff.

You know, uh, here we go again.

I'm feeling, uh, the way I felt about the financial crisis.

Now I'm feeling about climate change for exactly the same reason.

And w when did you predict the what?

2008.

They, they, they, it all went banana as, yes.

It, the starting date of the crisis is actually August 14th, 2007.

That's the day that yes, we're speaking of the France.

Uh, this is the day the bank national, the party, uh, shut down three of its accounts, which were, they stopped withdrawals and three of the accounts which were linked into the subprime market, they, they simply couldn't evaluation.

So that was the shock that began.

Thing, and I started warning of it in December of 2005.

Oh, wow.

Quite circumstantial as to why it was then.

But I'll tell you, December 23 was my first, my first warning of the coming crisis.

Well, I mean, we always like to ask, I guess, what's keeping you up at night at the moment, then potential extinction of the human race.

Do you I I Take us.

I, sorry.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That works.

Your attention.

I think I keep up.

He's got see him in this one.

Stay up at night.

I, I, I would plot a graft and I would say that we are too dug in now.

It's not gonna wipe us out, but, More and more people would die and this is how much we're gonna do about it.

And at some point a point.

But at some point, you know, enough will be happening in this country that even if I'm reduced to living in a hut Yeah.

Off berries.

Yeah.

You know, we survive.

That's the thing.

It probably mess, it probably won't be us.

Right.

Or you know, we, it's gonna take a lot for it to be us.

It's gonna be loads of other people.

In other countries that get it first.

Right.

I'd love, I'd love, I love the sound of optimism in the morning.

No, but you know, it will, it will just be, you are right.

It's just that feeling of everything's a little more tarnish than it was last year.

Like I'm, I'm gonna give you my scariest.

Yeah, let's, this is, I read the academic literature on this stuff, not just what economists write, which is bullshit, but I wrote the scientist as well on that front.

The most interesting person I've.

I think it's John G.

Anderson.

Now he, you shouldn't take him serious.

He's obviously a crank.

He's only the professor of atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University.

Mm-hmm.

. And he only discovered the whole in the ozone layer back in the eight.

Don't take him seriously, obviously.

Yeah, yeah.

He's a wanker, you know?

Yeah, okay.

Okay.

His research focus is on the ozone lab and he argues, and this is the scariest thing I've read about climate change.

Cause everybody puts in a sea rise and stuff like that.

This, this is what you should care about.

So this is the guy who discovered the hole in the ozone layer.

He led the campaign, what didn't lead.

He was one of the important people in leading the campaign to close the hole by cutting down CFCs back in the late, you know, 20th, uh, 20th century.

He argues that when we lose Kartik summer sea ice, and that's not a question of if now it's when, and it could be in the.

10 years, five to 10 years.

The earlies estimates I've seen from scientists said we're gonna lose it in five years, are the same 20.

Okay.

When we lose it, the three circulation cells that, that determine the weather patterns in the Northern hemisphere right now, so we have what's called the Hadley cell from zero to 30 degrees, the faris cell from 30 to 60 big circulation patterns in the atmosphere in Fahrenheit.

You're in?

Yeah.

Okay.

No, no.

This is degrees north and south.

South.

Ah, degrees of latitude.

Right.

Okay.

That that'll break.

, there'll be a uniform cell in the Northern Hemisphere.

Now, fair, I'm gonna say some of the people say that won't happen until 2170.

So this is, you know, it's disputed this particular claim.

But he says when that happens, and he totally ignores what that might mean for humanity, and says that what will then happen is that storms that are currently restricted, what's called the troposphere, so the bottom now 10 kilometers at the atmosphere.

Yeah.

Typhoons.

They will penetrate the stratosphere and they'll take moisture into the Stratos.

Okay.

Now that doesn't sound like much of a problem.

The stratosphere is currently very dry.

There's very little, little h twoo on the stratosphere.

Most of it's all that's in the troposphere, but what it's gonna carry up there is gonna be chlorine and bromide.

Oh God.

Where's to get that from?

But anyway, let's carry on 2017.

Article by this guy on.

No, no.

Where's to get the chloride in the bromide?

Well, unfortunately not just from humans, we produce a huge amount of it, of course.

And it doesn't, it's a trace element in the, and.

, it doesn't damage anything here.

It gets into the stratosphere.

He said it'll increase the rate of destruction, of ozone by a factor of a hundred.

But his point is, if this happens, then, uh, if the, the Arctic breaks now, which is the case of when he says, then that will also mean these.

Storms take moisture and chlorine and bromide into the, into the stratosphere, and they will destroy the ozone layer.

Well, it could be the end of the world then it could be the end of the world.

I hadn't thought it from the perspective of we could turn ourselves into Pluto, you know, just like another crazy planet.

Yeah.

And the whole ecosystem, because I liked, uh, what George Carlin said, a very famous, famous, oh yeah, Carlin's.

Great Fanta.

And he said, you know, everyone's like, oh, save the planet.

So the planet's fine.

I know.

We're gonna be, we're fucked.

That's right.

We're fucked.

But the planet's fine.

The planet will sort it out.

The planet doesn't give it shit.

Give us 10 maybe million years.

A million years.

Yeah.

It will just be, I mean, one of my mates who's a, he's, he's another professor of economics, but he did a degree in, in, uh, I think geology before he became in a economist.

And he really objects to people talking about what he calls the an anthrop epoch, because an EP.

Is 50 million years.

20 million years along.

Epoch means the end of the world.

No, epoch means a period is a period of time.

Oh, have the, oh, Jura Jurassic.

Period.

Period.

Jurassic Epoch.

50 million.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

You said it's not, you said this.

It's not gonna be the anthrop in epoch.

We won't last tonight.

We haven't been around that long.

Well, we, we, we, why, what are we the last few seconds before midnight?

You know, the human rights, what you call is the, when you look at, in geologically, it's an anthroposeen event.

The species turned.

You know, 200,000 years ago started building industrial civilizations or, you know, sedentary civilizations 12,000 years ago.

And in 13,000 years wipes themselves out.

So that is 13,000 years, not 13 million.

No, it'll be an event.

It'll be as virtually as fast as being hit by a meteor.

Oh no.

It's when you say, oh, and they rule the earth for 150 million.

It's, it's like, you know, you suddenly think about the British SH Empire.

Oh, the British SH empire ruled the what, you know, written 50.

You lucky not million hundred 50 years.

So that's what that, and that's the stuff we're ignor.

and that's not the sort of thing you should ignore, but I don't, I genuinely don't get it because everybody, you know, I don't have any kids, but I've got nieces.

Everybody has another generation.

Yeah.

Whoever you are, there is another generation coming up and another one after that.

And you want to see the people you love and care about and there.

Offspring thrive.

Why is it that it's so hard for us to go, okay, it might not benefit us in our lifetime, but it's gonna benefit the lifetime of those people we care about or the people we care about.

Yeah, but we think about that, about in terms of, you know, not wanting to eat too much or get too drunk.

You know, it's, it's in the benefit of my family, you know?

But, but, but then, then I, then I just thought, fuck it.

I love a burger and go to Paris.

I know, but what she seem like should be thinking what she seem like he's.

In theory, in control of this country.

He should be thinking, I may have all the money in the world and I really do, but I've got children that will die of cancer at the age of, you know, 15.

Oh, that's, that's cause there's no reason that economists have been vital.

Cause they've trivialized the whole thing.

They've got no fucking idea of what's a climate change actually is.

And be, because they've come from the perspective that capitalism is the world's most flexible social system and it can cope with anything.

Therefore, climate change can't be a problem.

Mm-hmm.

And therefore they've said, well, let's, let's, let's, you know, and they've trivialized the dangers and then what people like what they got.

The economists have trivialized the dangers.

Oh, totally.

Totally.

Ah, interesting.

Because it doesn't, doesn't help with making money, presumably.

It's sort of the wrong art form.

It's a bit like a sort of, you know, an accountant advising a graphic designer or whatever.

Well, that's the thing.

Yeah.

And the, the thing is, economists have, you know, they've whizzed their way into power in every, every part of society.

you go to a, you know, any major financial company, its boss is gonna be an economist.

He's gonna have a creative economist advising him or the really, in the really big companies and not so much in the, they might be, you'd likely get the Richard Branson's turn up there at the, the actual, at originators.

But they'll surround themselves with staff maybe when they, when maybe we're making a mistake.

Because we, we, we, we, we, you know, now and then we like to have an economist on the show to tell us what the hell's going on.

Well, I haven't got a clue.

So , but you want people, it's because if you are running a company,

You want somebody who can, in theory tell you what's gonna happen in the next 20 years.

Yeah.

No, that's why when you're, when you're a a, a, um, a chief in Africa back in five, 10,000 years ago, you want a witch doctor.

You can tell you what the chicken hand trails say about the future.

So in that sense, economist of the chicken hand trail, readers of capitalism, there's, it's something fascinating the way that there's, you are made to feel shit about it.

Not you personally, but this problem about new ideas, you know, and I mean, I could give a sort of, um, ridiculous example maybe, is that, You know, trickle down economy would work if we didn't make people feel embarrassed about spending money and we were a bit more like, spend your money, you know, and just go for it.

And you could be outlandish, but it's, you know, it, it's all about we, we, we, the, the, the concern of how people perceive our behavior and how the little, you know, cuz you, we, why do you feel, you know, no one listened, no, no one can stop that juggernaut.

Can they, everything is, I'm trying to take the punch ball away while the party is still.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's, that's a major part of it.

But you can't, I'm just thinking like nobody can stop the train, man.

You know?

Can they, you know, doesn't matter how big you are.

You'd be fine if you were trying to add gin to the punch bowl, but you're trying to take it away.

I'm trying to take the gin out of the punch, punch balls.

A bloody punch bowl, Steeler.

And that's, and that's, that's the dilemma.

And only thing is we, we, we're not creatures that think systemically, okay?

We think about, you know, the events that surround us.

That's what we go me, I think about me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We think about ourselves.

And we don't, and think the systemic stuff is just too complicated for most people.

And they don't think systemic means what?

System?

System.

The actual system.

System.

How does the system itself function?

So economists get listened to because they're supposed to be experts on the system.

They're not.

Okay.

But, and, and that's, that's the danger.

If we had, people actually were experts on the system, they would've said, yeah.

Limits to growth very.

That could happen.

We've got a cut back on population growth.

We've gotta start changing from fossil fuels that went back in 1972.

Instead, what did the economists do?

They can totally derided limits to go.

Said, ignore these bastards.

We can grow at rapid, rapid rates forever.

And that, that told us basically the party we're in now can go on indefinitely, so let's continue the party.

That's been their attitude.

Ah, it's just something, it's just, it doesn't make sense, does it?

You know.

No, but that's, that's, that's why we're, we know that you can't have a party without a hang.

Very well said.

I'm gonna take that one away.

. But, but, but the interesting thing is, there are some economist and clever people.

I mean, these are clever people.

These aren't idiots who were like, it's all bullshit.

Just keep printing the money and let the dream go on.

It's all an illusion, you know?

Well, yeah.

I mean, clever people learning a dumb theory can turn up like, uh, uh, people who follow Jonestown.

Yeah.

You know, and that's the trouble it takes.

Georgetown, that's an American thing.

Um, the Kool-Aid.

Yeah.

But the Kool-Aid, David Koresh, isn't it?

Drinking their own Kool-Aid, drinking the Kool-Aid.

Yeah.

But I was, so they've swallowed this theory and it's incredibly convincing.

I believed it when I was at high school, mainstream economics, and I was lucky to have a lecturer.

It was actually English, I think it was from Manchester, uh, who pointed out a fall floor in the theory in first year economics.

And that floor completely inverted.

The advice of economics, rather than saying, you should abolish trade unions that said you should hang on to them, they're necessary.

And I thought before I learned this lecture, I thought getting rid of trade unions would be a good idea and I make labor market competitive and he gives this perfectly legitimate, mainstream explanation.

That's why that would be a bad idea.

And I thought, holy hell, simply admitting that they're both trade unions and industrial concentrations of monopolies, whatever else.

Mm.

Is enough to mean that rather than abolishing trade unions, you'd hang on to them as long.

If you also got monopolies or you know, major industrial conglomerations, it's.

So almost it's a, it's a, and that's makes sense.

It's ying and ying and yank, and you have power on one side.

Well, one was created by the other.

Don't, don't.

No one is to balance laws of fake nature.

Something made that necessary.

One of them balanced the other.

Now mainstream economics there, you get rid of both of them, but it doesn't matter the sequence in which you do it.

And, and of course it's impossible to get rid of Richard Branson, so they get rid of the trade unions.

Instead, when you put this what's called the theory of the second best in, it says, well, no, if you got one and you get rid of, you got two and you get rid of one, you'll make welfare worse.

Yeah.

And I thought, this is crazy.

Well, well say that.

Just it's, if you have.

trade unions and you've got, uh, in industrial organizations Yeah.

Negotiating the wage.

Then according to what's called the theory, the second best there goes back to the 1950s.

In fact, a guy called Kevin Kelvin, Lancaster invented the idea.

Okay.

So Kelvin, uh, worked out that if you, if you been using strictly straight economic theory, it's saying you have both a mono.

The supplier of labor.

So a trade union facing a monopoly buyer.

So an industrial organization.

Yeah.

If you got rid of one or the other, you necessarily made the welfare outcome worse.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Cause because that makes logical sense.

But what have we done?

We've abolished trade unions in the last 40 years.

We've, we've wiped them out.

What's that?

I know.

Okay.

Because we followed the, the simplified version of economic theory.

So that's a good idea.

But let's take that further.

My, my, I can hear my old man screaming at the radio now, but you know that you lived, you know, if you lived, if you lived through, you know, strikes and stuff and you know Yeah.

But just to be clear, right?

If you go back to Maggie manufacture, right, who came in after the winter of disco, right?

Someone had to say fascia.

The first thing Maggie Thatcher did was increase everybody's pay by a fuck.

so that nobody str went on strike anymore, you know?

But she increased pay for everybody and everybody was then happy.

Oh my God.

That was something positive about manufacture.

Yeah, because, but my point being, trade unions worked.

Yes.

A really interesting point.

I'm just, just threading, so trade unions are quite strong in Australia?

No, they're not.

Not anymore.

Maybe not anymore stronger than, That's not hard.

No . That's like the rest of the fucking world.

Apart from from America anyway.

What is the problem that we think that we have with trade unions and what is the advantage?

Uh, the advantage Trading unions is a balance.

But what is, what is the, why are you saying that?

Why do you care whether there's trade unions?

Because you bargain over the wage.

The wage is, see, conventionally gone theory.

They have, they have bargaining power.

They bargaining power.

Conventional economic theory says the wage simply reflects what they call the marginal product of labor.

Okay?

So whatever you contribute, Whatever the last worker contributes to our port is the wage that all workers get, and that's the theory, and we shall let the market reach that point.

Now, even if you accept that theory and it's wrong empirically, and all sorts of other problems with it.

Even you accept that theory and you say you've got monopoly buyers of labor, what they call mono.

So on one side a monopoly supply of labor on the other, you'll fall somewhere between one side or the other or that, that marginal product line.

But if you get rid of the um, one side, as we get rid of the trade unions, you'll get the wage being less than the marginal product of labor.

So workers are being ripped off according to conventional.

It would be interesting to get your view on what is going on in the UK right now.

So, oh, this, this comes down to, uh, you know, what's the government's role in this society, and partly it's, you know, providing all the, the things which, uh, you, you want to be there for the, for the private sector to function properly.

So you want people to get to work, for example.

You know?

Mm-hmm.

and not go bankrupt getting to work.

So you want a public transport system that works, that sort of thing.

That would be nice.

That would be nice.

Yeah.

Um, you want health, you want education, those sorts of things.

And they're things which, if you make it profitable, they then only the people that can afford to pay the price actually get it.

And you end up with an un uneducated.

Bottom strata and society, which means you can't develop all the advance uneducated you want.

Okay?

Bottom and strata.

It undermines the capacity to develop an advanced civilization.

So that's, that's a productive role of, of, of, of, uh, of the public sector, is to provide the goods, which you need everybody to have.

Otherwise you don't have a functioning society, so that's, you don't do that by spending less, okay?

You have to have a certain amount, which is covered by government spending.

When you have high government spending, you've also gotta have high government taxation, because if you high have high spending without taking.

The excess money, the government creates outer circulation.

You're gonna have inflation, you're gonna be importing too many goods, you have a trade deficit, et cetera, et cetera.

So there's a reason for having a high taxing government is because you also wanna have a high spending government.

If you look at what's happening in like the Scandinavian countries, they've got a far high rate of taxon here because they also have a high, far, far high rate of spending, and people might get lower, you know, effective salaries out.

But they know that all the basic stuff is covered.

Yeah.

J Germany, Sweden, Norway, all these places, Texas, uh, uh, I mean social security in Germany on any employee, 34% or something.

You know, it's like, and I remember saying to my German colleagues, uh, Manfred, saying, what's the hell system like?

It's excellent

It's like, it's basically it.

Yeah.

And the education system free, the terrifying thing is the disparity.

You look at the figures they publish of the difference between the most well off and the least well off in any country.

That's huge.

Yeah.

And we are absolutely at the bottom of that list.

And the o n s came out off of a national statistics, came out with a tweet, uh, saying that 24% of Britain's reported.

Could not afford to keep themselves warm in November and December.

Now, 24% of the population can't afford to keep warm in a country which is cold.

, there's something wrong with your society.

I mean, I don't want to be like, I'll just get struck down by both of you, but I find those stats always a bit like someone ticked a box to say that, you know, but I, I, there's definitely huge inequality, but I'd love to know the real stats I saw.

Maybe it's higher.

I'm just saying, you know, this information when people give it to you.

I saw a stat today about average, the average price.

People are paying for energy in different countries in.

And most of Europe, pretty much all of Europe per year, the average price is 800 and something, euros or whatever, right?

UK it's 2000 something.

Yeah.

And, and weirdly, even though we were the only ones who for ages, were like, ah, Russia, and we'd like Norway are our mates.

I I, you know, Norwegian British Chamber is something where Norway business were very involved in.

And if you are earning, you know, what's an average salary in the uk?

30, 30 something grand, 20 compared to the cost 20 something, 30 something, it's not a lot.

And you've gotta.

Two and a half grand in energy costs almost 10%.

Just insane of your gross salary going on energy.

It's just insane.

Yeah, and we ended up in a dysfunctional society in the UK because you've swallowed the argument, the private sector does everything better.

Yeah, the private sector doesn't do health better.

It doesn't do education better.

It only ends up doing better by comparison because the other one's underfunded and falling apart, you know, and can't cope with what it has.

You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, dispiriting.

I mean, I find that difficult thing here that the equality is.

It's a hugely, um, and it's getting worse.

It's getting worse everywhere, but it's getting worse here.

It's getting really bad here.

The inequality is terrifying.

And then, and then I know you, you know, you, you, you, you may have something to say on this, but you know, should we rejoin the eu?

Like, you know, we were in the eu and that actually the people who voted for it were probably a lot of the people suffering with inequality.

And it's made, it will make the co, I mean, just a simple economic.

Brexit as simple economics.

Yeah.

Look, I voted for Brexit.

You know why?

Because I thought it would tell the EU they had to get their act together instead.

Okay, great mate.

The British completely fucked it up.

Yeah, we really, really fucked up.

Really fucked it up.

Didn't you think after the vote came in, you must think what?

I thought that people like, okay, we voted that, but now let's have a sensible conversation about what that means.

And we did.

We were design.

A couple of days later, you get David.

Can't even, you know, defend.

I don't think, I don't think Cameron should have resigned.

In all honesty, Cameron should have said, okay, it was only by 51%.

Let's have a conversation.

Let's talk about what this means.

Let's have some, you know, this, this is an indicative vote.

But it was just like everyone was like, right.

But we also still can't say stupidly handled, very stupidly handled.

We also still can't say we've got this like kind of insane thing in the UK where we still can't say.

That there is anything wrong with Brexit?

No, it's, look, looking at it, the way it's been handled was a mistake.

If I'd known what the vote would've gone, I wouldn't have got out of.

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Now back to the chat.

Uh, so is there anything that you think is bullshit in business?

In business?

Mm.

Three months.

Three months reporting and, and, uh, uh, stockholder value, that whole focus.

Uh, you go back to your German argument.

The reason Germany works better corporately is they have what they call the office shred, which is a parallel board that has members of unions and the community and suppliers in terms of managing a company.

No way.

I didn't Gives your longer term perspective.

And the Britain's Britain three months report.

That's one reason you guys have gone down the, the gurgler and three months reporting to who?

Uh, the, the, so you gotta increase your stock price every three months.

That's short term perspective.

That's destructive for the long term.

Oh, so what, in terms of the city and all of that, that they should start saying, what have a, is it not getting there that they've now gotta report a multi-levels or something?

No, that's all bullshit.

I mean, the esg, most of what's been done in ESG is just nonsense.

They haven't, they haven't taken it on serious.

it's all for the sake of appearances rather than really changing how a company behaves.

How would, how would Britain change how it's operating though?

Introduce the board thing like Germany.

Well, I think for a start, you wouldn't run down your apprenticeship system.

Oh, I see.

Ridiculous.

You looking at how dreadful the apprenticeships are and how you've run.

You've, you've got rid of all your tertiary, you're uh, Your, um, skilled, uh, workforce training group, what used call the technical and further education in Australia, whatever they gotta call here, they got turned into universities.

So you, you, and, and it's all about status.

It's not about actually knowing what you polytechnics.

Yeah.

You go to Germany, I mean, being an apprentice, uh, machine tool maker.

You're working on serious technology, but do you not take the, we discussed this in Martin Wolf when he was saying how this, uh, we should avoid the romanticism that we're gonna return to what Britain was 2200 years ago.

You know, we're really good at life sciences.

You know, we should encourage the apprenticeship world of life science, which is kind of university, isn't it?

But if you go back and look at how much of.

Britain's GDP is manufacturing versus how much is Germany is.

I think it was something you order of 30% was 25 to 30% of the GDP was manufacturing back in Maggie Thatcher's day.

Now it's about eight.

Look at Germany, roughly 30%, but now it's roughly 30%.

Yeah.

Okay.

They stuck with the manufacturing side.

Oh, it's ridiculous that we didn't invest in this country.

We're good.

Invent.

You know, I mean, it's happened in Australia too with Holden, isn't it?

Oh yeah.

I mean, well, Holden was a, was a, was a wink, but uh, like Australia made the world's first Micro com laptop computer really, really well.

The Mont Magnum.

Okay.

I own three of Don, the Don Want Mag Magnum Magnum.

I think Australias should get name everything around the world.

It would be so much more fun.

Everything will end in.

Uh, yeah.

Well that would've, you know, with the Aboriginal infr, the aboriginal names are the best.

But even the Australian names Bone Kuni brand, fantastic names.

Yeah.

They roll off the tongue.

They're themselves and they, no, we, we do it to, to, to make it quicker and then sometimes they make the word longer, which Amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Jack?

Yeah.

Yeah, guy.

It comes Stevie.

Stevie Stever Hate.

Yeah.

Oh, he's watching a dog guy with Stavo, and he said that he's gotta go Pino.

You can do it.

Well, you've been there too, obviously.

Uh, with this one I'm gonna ask you a series of questions.

Yeah.

Uh, get, you know you a little better.

You've only got five seconds to answer each.

Okay.

Me and Pip are not gonna interrupt you.

He's gonna interrupt.

I'm not d.

Cue the music.

Thank you very much.

What was your first job?

First job?

Uh, working in the Bank of New South Wales.

I'm not gonna interrupt.

What, what's your worst job?

Uh, working for a bunch called Trash and treasure.

Uh, I.

Weekly putting out, uh, you know, people for selling secondhand junk and stuff like that was great for the people, but the person who ran it was a total asshole.

He'd turn up every week to check in, see what we were doing with shit house wages.

He'd arrive on a Rolls Royce with a different dolly bird on his arm every, every, every Sunday.

So that was probably the worst job.

Favorite subject at school?

Uh, physics.

Hmm.

Yeah, except they had a lousy good at Math two, weren't you?

Must have been.

Mm-hmm.

, what's your special skill?

. Sing through bullshit.

. What did you wanna be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a physicist, but I had six years of lousy physics teachers, so I ended up as an economist instead, or a tennis player.

Teachers make all the difference.

They do.

Uh, what did your parents want you to be grow when you grew up?

Uh, probably an accountant.

Ah, my dad was mom, dad was bank manager.

Was he a bank manager?

He was a bank manager.

Definitely wanted you to be an accountant there, you.

What's a secure job?

What's your go-to karaoke song?

, uh, house of the Rising Sun.

Oh, there is a house classic in New Orleans.

Um, office dogs.

Office dog.

Business of bullshit, bullshit than business.

Uh, have you ever been fired?

Uh, yes.

. Okay.

You have to think about that.

Cool.

Oh, write that down.

Not gonna ask, not gonna ask.

Uh, what's your vice ? Uh, it, it grows on, it grows on a plan.

Where did you get fired from?

Uh, like I say, Kingston University.

What did you do?

Well, um, I walked into, I didn't quite get fired.

I, I resign.

I, I got me out of the damn job, which I wanted to do.

This is, this is, Speaking out its turn, but I, when I got the head of office, the job job was head of school.

I, I was looking forward to getting my office and meeting my secretarial staff.

I got no secretarial staff in my office.

Was one third the size of this room and had a big patch of mold on the wall.

Yeah.

It was dreadful.

Okay.

Terrible situation.

And I then went back one day, years and years later, they'd kicked us outta the building, the Vice chancellor move inside and my office's head of school had been turned into a canteen for the vice chancellor's staff, a kitchen app.

And I lost it in front of the staff.

I was quite abusive.

Not at all my normal behavior.

And uh, you had a bad it day.

I had a bad it day and I.

You know, this was my Slummy office and you guys sent it to a kitchenette.

I was head of department of 40 staff supposedly answering to me, and I had a, this trivial room, you've sent it to a kitchenette.

So, yeah.

Uh, it was not quite sack, but by mutual agreement.

I left that day.

. Yeah.

Wow.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Good.

Tick.

Uh, did I write anything in trash and treasure?

Best company name ever.

. . Do you not think you were just a little bit, you know, it's that you're doing a shit job and he's living the life and basically, you know, Richard Branson probably shouldn't have his swimming pool, his hookers and his, now look, Richard Brand did this guy.

It wasn't just the fact he turned up with a dolly bird, every different dolly bird every week and it Rolls Royce.

Okay.

It was also the fact that they used to dock our pay.

People paid two ducks to get in, or 20 bucks to be a stall holder.

And if we made two mistakes like missed, two people coming inside our pay got docked.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

So as we just, he was an asshole.

That's what it was.

We started Then you.

Hiding how many were coming in to pocket the money for ourselves.

Okay.

So his, you know, greed towards us.

Yeah.

Made us rapacious towards him was bloody awful.

I love the people I work with.

I love the straw holders and stuff like, but this guy was an asshole and the management system meant we behaved criminally.

To get away from his asshole behavior.

Okay, so this is where we give you 30 seconds, Steve, to pitch your company podcast, book, whatever you wanna pitch.

Okay?

I'm gonna pitch the software package and developing called Rav, uh, which, which is uh, if you ever use a pivot table, Oh, yes.

Okay.

They're, they're bullshit.

And I've worked out a far better way to handle multidimensional data, and I'll be launching it in the next six months.

Wow.

I wanna sell the IP because I'd rather put my time into doing my non-standard economic research.

So I'm open to offers, uh, but R will run rings around Tableau, power bi, et cetera, cetera.

They're primitive compared to what I can do with rl.

My graphics are primitive right now.

That's the part I'm working on.

But the underlying power wipes out anything you might do with pivot table.

. So anybody using pivot tables get in.

Wow.

We use them a lot as accountants.

I mean, we live off them.

Oh, they're boring.

They're so hard to un analyze.

Mine's much, much faster, much easier.

I would just say, don't say you do non-standard economic research.

Say you do non bullshit economic, that's non-standard throw.

I actually might have that as the subtitle for the Keen I.

It makes much more sense non bullshit economics because?

Because non standard is funny.

Oh, I'm a weirdo.

Stay do if you, if I get the funding for the Keen Institute, I promise non bullshit economics is the subtitled.

Yeah.

Uh, it's not that offensive anymore.

Brandon and Steve, if people wanna get in touch with you, where do they find you?

Uh, Patreon and CK.

The main places.

So I've got a, my Patreon is triple W patreon.com/profs, Steve Kean and the stackers, profs steve kean.dot com.

Those are the two best locations.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

So there you have it.

That was this week's episode of Business Without Bullshit.

Very good.

Thanks Pip.

Thanks Steve.

We'll be back with Bwb Extron on Thursday.