Debunking Economics - the podcast17 Des 2025

Rethinking Foreign Aid

Foreign aid is shrinking fast. The UK has cut its commitment from 0.7% of national income to 0.3%, the US has scrapped USAID and axed 80% of its projects, and overall global aid is down by more than a quarter in just five years. That’s less than 0.2% of the world economy — smaller than Walmart’s turnover — even as the Gates Foundation warns that cuts have already reversed decades of progress in child survival. In 2025 alone, 200,000 extra children under five are expected to die from preventable causes. And in places like Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Central African Republic, one in ten infants won’t make it to their first birthday.

Economist Steve Keen argues that aid is often designed with the assumption that chunks of it will flow back to donor countries through trade and contracts, reinforcing global imbalances rather than fixing them. He suggests revisiting Keynes’s old idea of a Bancor — a global currency to balance trade — so aid isn’t just a disguised subsidy for rich economies. Without structural reform, we’re left with the paradox of trying to support countries where GDP per capita is $150–$200, while the same amount is a single day’s salary in Luxembourg. Rethinking aid means asking whether we’re propping up conflicts and fragile states, or building a fairer system where resources actually stick and help people survive.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(512)

Too slow for zero?

This week Phil and Steve confront the mathematical and environmental reality of a "zero growth" future, sparked by a debate over the deflationary traps of finite currency systems like Bitcoin. Steve t...

7 Jul 42min

Challenges for the reserve currency

How much longer can the United States rely on the US dollar to dominate the global financial system, and what happens when the cracks finally start to show? In this week's Debunking Economics podcast,...

2 Jul 39min

The world’s anti-migration shift to the right

Phil and Steve confront the global surge in anti-immigration rhetoric and right-wing political momentum, tracing its roots to the structural failures of neoliberalism rather than the actions of migran...

23 Jun 48min

GDP is hopelesss as a relative measure

Steve and Phil critique our systemic over-reliance on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the definitive baseline for comparing global economies and measuring societal well-being. The discussion underscor...

17 Jun 45min

Is Labour right to cut tax incentives for housing speculators?

This week Phil and Steve dig into the storm of controversy over Australia's new budget rules targeting property speculators. The Labor government has scaled back negative gearing and abolished the 50%...

10 Jun 44min

Hedging an Uncertain Future

This week Phil challenges Steve on how the futures market handles terminal risk, pointing out that oil prices slope downward over time simply because traders blindly assume the Strait of Hormuz will r...

20 Mai 38min

Conditioned to borrow, not save

This week Phil and Steve dismantle the structural shift of the global economy toward a permanent state of debt dependence. Following a critique of Steve’s recent debate on the Piers Morgan show and a ...

13 Mai 45min

Improving Productivity

In this episode of Debunking Economics, Steve Keen dismantles the mainstream economic obsession with "Total Factor Productivity" (TFP), labeling it a mythical construct that ignores the laws of physic...

6 Mai 32min