The event took place in the Mark Twain Memorial Museum, and during the talk world-renowned economist Robert Shiller shared about Narrative Economic and the upcoming economic recession. The topic of Narrative Economic is the idea that normal epidemic stories can create influences on the economic system. People such as celebrities and governors who have broader influences or bigger power have been the primary source of creating narratives. One thing that is caused by the narrative effect is Bitcoin. Because it is the first currency that doesn’t tie to the nation, its uniqueness creates a long-lasting discussion throughout the world. The epidemic spread of Bitcoin is one cause of its skyrocket increase. He also spends a lot of his talk talking about Donald Trump. Trump uses narrative a lot and is very good at it. He doesn’t speak too much about abstract things and most of his points are very straight forward. This drives people to think more, creating more narrative effects.
Shiller also mentioned the upcoming economic recession. Trump’s action to go through a trade war with China is very similar to the Great Depression. During the1900s, there was no tariff on international trading. However, in late 1920, tariffs were set on trading cargos and eventually lead to the Great Depression. Right now the same thing is happening between China and the U.S. The upcoming economic depression is inevitable, and if it happened before the election, it will influence Trump’s second term election. Dr. Shiller said that it is almost impossible to predict and has a 50% chance to happen before the election and 50% after.
First of all, I was really glad to have the opportunity to listen to a Nobel Prize Winner talking about his field of the study field, but I am really surprised that not a lot of people come to the event. His talk is inspiring and he blends in his humor into the talk to also make it interesting to listen to. Because my knowledge of the economy is still at a basic level, a lot of the information he talked about is confusing for me, but he definitely brings up more passion than I have about economics. He analyzed Trump from an economic perspective, which is very unique from all the political discussions right now, and presents a very different perspective to me. However, I feel like the host and Doctor Shiller are not talking about the same thing most of the time. The host kind of misunderstood some of his points and often are leading the talk to a different path that Doctor Shiller is trying to. But all in all, it is a fascinating talk. If I can listen to the whole talk for one more time I will accept, and I hope I can attend more events like this in the future.
