I mentioned my meeting with Steve Keen earlier this week.
On reflection, I decided the risk of buying a Windows machine was worth taking. Although I am sure it is good of its type, it seems that Microsoft tries to make everything as hard as possible for the user when compared to a Mac. This will not become my machine of choice, ever, I suspect (although I am writing this on it for the sake of novelty).
Having got the setup, I have now downloaded both Minsky and Ravel, which is the version with an added graphics interface, which Steve has also made available to me.
And now I am working my way through the manual. This goes against every instinct I have - but in this case I think I have no choice. I would love to say that Minsky is obvious, but in the first instance it is not.
I have the considerable good fortune of being able to think double entry without any difficulty: it is my second language. After forty-seven years of using it there are few transactions in any economy that I cannot think through in these terms. I would not say that ability is key to using Minsky, but it certainly helps. You cannot use the Godlrey tables, which define the double entry in Minsky and so guarantee that the economic model of the economy that it produces does actually balance, without being able to differentiate assets and liabilities, liabilities and equity (both of them being credits, but which behave in quite different ways), and income and expenditure, with in all cases having an awareness of which entries should be pluses (or debits) and minuses (or credits). Minsky does not work otherwise - which can be seen as a strength in my opinion.
So far, I can recreate Steve's model of the basic monetary dimensions within the economy. How long does that take? Once you get your head around it, not long.
But, I have to spend a lot more time on this. I suspect a few days will be required before I work out what I can make Minsky do as yet. In the meantime, there are a lot of videos to watch. This might be a good place to start for the curious:
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We used to read about the ‘Treasury model of the economy’. I presumed that was some sort of computer version. But its usefulness would depend on the inputs.
Would Steve’s model be an improvement or is a different thing?
A massive improvement, I suggest
It would be interesting to know if Minsky can establish a relationship model between a country’s current account performance and its base rate. Japan currently has a base rate of nearly 1.5% and the UK 4.5% yet their current accounts currently are not dissimilar although the UK’s has been yo-yoing. Both of course are relying heavily on earnings from foreign investment and perhaps location of those investments is an important factor given today’s geo-political factors. Japan is more heavily invested in the United States for example than the UK.
Minsky does what it is told.
I am not sure if this has been tried.
Thank you for sharing Richard, I’ll dip in.
I loathe Microsoft with a passion that even I find disturbing. It will be Apple for me when I’ve got the cash as some stage although only on the basis of the operating system – nothing else.
Steve often suggests going to Ty Keynes YouTube for instructions. Ty is amazing at Minsky.
I haven’t watched his stuff yet.
I will
Ha ha! I’m trying to go from Windows to Mac, because Macs are nicer to use and you get Garage Band. Lots of things are back to front, but these can be got used to. My problem is with how Mac puts documents where it wants, not where I want! I don’t have any views on Minsky, though I’ve done plenty of modelling (ex actuary) and the comments about inputs seem bang on to me.
Looking forward to our lot (ITFC) against your lot (NCFC) next season.
Keep up the good work.
I use the cloud for file storage
It works
Macs can be trained
And I will, forever, be ITFC, having been brought up in Ipswich in the 70s
If you are trying to predict the future with Minsky, make sure you do sensitivity analysis. If tiny chnages in parameters have big effects, stop trying to predict and work out how negative feedback can be added. Keen is well aware of this of course.
I agree, it will be necessary
It should be very obvious to everyone in this country that the era of Market Fundamentalism is now over except that it isn’t. None of the political parties recognise that there can be only one arbiter in the need to expand and contract the medium of exchange as the UK economy encounters various forms of uncertainty and that’s the institution of the state. This arbiter, however, must be subtle and nuanced in actions avoiding for example the stupidity of Milton Friedman’s Monetarism. The development of a more subtle and nuanced modelling of the UK economy including the effects of money creation in the shape of the Minksy software should be seen as an important step in undermining the disfunctional ideology of the Market Fundamentalists.