New Economic Perspectives has a wonderful video of the lecture Turn That Frown Upside Down by Professor Stephanie Kelton.  New Economic Perspectives has also posted the slides that go with the lecture.  It’s not essential, but you might appreciate the lecture more if you print the slides before you watch the video.  The video is pretty good about showing the slides if you watch it on a big enough screen. (The audio, well not quite so good. The coughers have a better microphone than Kelton does.)

As I added the word to the title of this blog, so that it would make the subject of the article more obvious, it came to me in a flash how appropriate the title is. See if you can find the point in the lecture where she turns the frown upside down.

Her presentation is so clear and obvious that you can hardly fail to get the point. The only thing that might interfere with your understanding of what she is saying might be that little voice in your head sputtering “This can’t possibly be right, can it?” If you can suppress that little voice for 45 minutes, you will instead see that “This can’t possibly be wrong.”

Actually, there is another thing that could interfere with your understanding. She explicitly tells you the things that she is not saying that your preconceived notions might have you believing that she did say. If you are constantly jumping to the conclusion that you heard what she did not say, then this will interfere with your understanding what she is actually saying.

If you suffer either of these blockages, you might have to listen to the lecture again to actually hear what is being said.

To her explanation of idle factories, I always like to add “What part of no freakin customers do you not understand?”