Launching www.keenwalk.com.au
from Steve Keen
As most Australian readers would know, I recently lost half of a bet over Australian house prices when the Government’s “First Home Owners Boost”–which I prefer to call the First Home Vendors Boost–reignited Australia’s house price bubble.
As a result, I’m walking from Australia’s Parliament House to Australia’s highest mountain, Mt Kosciousko–a distance of 224km (140 miles). The walk will start at 2pm on Thursday April 15 from the entrance to Parliament House and–my legs willing–finish 8 days later on the summit of Mt Kosciousko (which is 2228 metres–or about 7000 feet–above sea level).
I have started a new blog www.keenwalk.com.au to support the walk, which I will use to draw attention to the absurdity of basing economic policy on making housing less affordable.
I would be delighted to have the company of any blog members or readers who can spare an afternoon for a 15km or so walk with me. Full details are given on the other blog, but in a nutshell I will be running about 15km every morning, and walking about the same distance every afternoon starting at about 2pm (anyone who can make it to Canberra one evening should have no difficulty driving to the start of any given day’s walk, since the entire drive from Canberra to Mt Kosciousko can be done in less than 3 hours).
The site won’t be as active as Debtwatch–I can barely handle the workload from one blog, let alone two! (Incidentally, Debtwatch is now getting about 60,000 unique readers each month). It has a static front page explaining why I’m doing the walk, and other pages for sponsorship, talking about the charity I’ll be supporting, and so on. During the walk itself I’ll blog frequently about the day’s activities, how I’m bearing up physically, who came along for the day, etc.
I reproduce the press release launching the new site below. Please go to the site to read the “Why I’m Walking” front page, which is an exposition on the housing bubble in Australia. I’ll copy that post to here in a few days time, but for now I’d like to get the new site inaugurated with a large number of visitors.
And if you can afford a day or so to come along and join me for the walk, please do sign up!
Steve Keen lost half of a famous bet with Macquarie Bank’s Rory Robertson when Australian house prices set a new record in September of last year. As a result, Steve is walking from Parliament House in Canberra to Mt Kosciousko—a distance of 224km. The walk will start on April 15th at 2pm. Steve plans to cover about 30km a day and finish in the afternoon of April 23rd.
Steve is hardly cowed by having lost half of the bet. “The main bet, over whether house prices here would fall by about 40% over 10-15 years as they did in Japan, is still alive and well”, he noted. “Rory may yet have to follow in my footsteps.”
I was wondering if you could shed some light on the ” Credit Default Swap market” no one ever talks about it and from what I can see there is potential for this market to wreak havoc on financial markets around the globe.
Should governments step in a and regulate this market before it gets out of control?
Hi Steve,
Great effort, you have 100% support from me here in Mexico City. Wish I could join you for the runs in the morning and the 15 K walks! But I’m afraid I’d have to swim there first. So, carry on. I have been wanting to write commenting on Debunking Economics, but will do that later, after your walk. This crisis is far from over. There’ll be many more bets and walks.
Cheers,
Alejandro
PS I have been teaching comparative economic theory for some time now, will soon retire, would like to discuss a couple of ideas with you. Check my web page, there is some new and interesting material there on general equilibrium theory.
If only I could book a ticket for Australia at the moment – I think in 2000 years, a book will be published on a sacred mountain in March led by a great prophet named Steve Keen as Apocalypse forecasts and led his followers security. If you can not manage the water into wine trick right away, I will be glad to donate something for the trip. Is there a paypal link somewhere?
Hi liveblackjack,
Thanks–but you’ve missed the walk itself (which was on April 15-23). However it went so well that the major participants (curiously a group of 12 others who joined me all the way) said they enjoyed it so much that they’d like to do a reunion walk in 5 years time.
You can see my comments on it here: http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/05/12/steve-keen-a-monkey-off-my-back/
And some of my fellow walkers here: http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/05/02/adam-kaczynski-blogger-ak-why-i-walked/ http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/04/29/rob-burgess-the-walk-never-really-ends/ http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/04/27/colin-mckay/ http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/04/27/liam-ohara/ http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/04/26/david-lawson/ http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/04/25/keen-walkers-nina-shedrin/ http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/05/10/gina-stephan/ http://www.keenwalk.com.au/2010/04/29/peter-renshaw-day-1/
On the fund raising front, we raised rather less than we spent, so I covered the difference there–roughly A$3,000. But if you’d like to support the continuing work on developing a responsible economics, consider going to my main website:
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/
and donating through that.
Thanks again, Steve