Do You Really Know What the Market Is All About?

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I just want to get on the table the pro market argument because it is kind of an interesting collective problem solving mechanism. But then it's very clear that there's a whole bunch of issues. And then the complicated part seems to me, which issues are more important and how do you solve them right? I have one very basic philosophical question right from the start, which is, does it even make sense to compare different kinds of goods in the way that your definition of of the market working in terms of price equing oequalling opportunity cost make sense? Is that a presupposition? We should worry that necessary? Wel, let's, let's again leave the money or en ee

The idea of an “interest rate” might seem mundane and practical, in comparison to our usual topics around here, but there is a profound philosophical idea lurking in the background: if you lend me money now against the promise of me paying you back more in the future, I am relating the different values that a certain sum has to me at different moments in time. Traditionally, the interest rates set by the government have been a major tool for influencing the economy, but in recent decades they have increasingly fallen near zero. John Quiggin relates this change to the shift from manufacturing to an information economy, and we talk about what that means for the public interest in having information be reliable and widely available. And yes, there is a bit about crypto.

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John Quiggin received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of New England. He is currently a VC Senior Fellow in Economics at the University of Queensland. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Among his books are Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us and Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly.

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