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Welcome to Navarra Live. I have another special episode for you today on the state of the UK economy,

ahead of Rachel Reeves' budget, of course. A couple of weeks ago, I did an hour-long interview with Martin Wolf,

very much someone who speaks from within the economics establishment, even if he's somewhat critical of it.

I think it was a very interesting conversation,

lots of views. However, lots of you were asking for someone who was outside of the economics

establishment for my second interview, someone who was a bit more of a rebel, and I have

exceeded to your demand. Professor Steve Keane is an economist who has spent his entire career calling out what he sees as the fatal flaws in mainstream economic thinking. And he has a popular YouTube channel where he regularly makes those arguments. I know a few of you already subscribe to that YouTube channel because we've had a number of requests for Steve Keene. One thing

Steve Keen thinks economists get wrong is the nature of banks and money. So he thinks economists have

systematically underestimated the importance of banks in the financial system and how too much private

debt creates financial crises. As you're hearing the first part of this interview,

I'm totally persuaded by Steve on this point. He deserves a lot of credit for predicting the 2008

financial crisis when other economists didn't. What I think of is more controversial arguments

concern is beliefs that governments don't really

need to worry about deficits. This comes from Steve's alignment with modern monetary theory,

something that comes up a lot again in comments, and sort of really divides the left, actually,

MMT. And it's a debate that's especially relevant today.

That's because Rachel Reeves' decision not to raise income tax

has spooked the markets who are now selling off government bonds.

Steve Keane thinks government shouldn't be scared at the bond markets.

I'm slightly less sure in terms of the interview for the first half.

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