Such is the censorial spirit of neoliberal monetary austerity. Its motto is TINA: There Is No Alternative, and it wants to keep matters this way. As long as it can suppress discussion of how many better alternatives there are, the hope is that the public will remain acquiescent as their living standards shrink and...
Posts Tagged ‘ Debt ’
Greek Strategy
Michael Hudson on the Greek experiment. More at The Real News The Greek crisis is being used to find out how far finance can drive down wages and privatize the public sector. Michael Hudson interviewed by Paul Jay Note: This is my editing of an interview Professor Michael Hudson gave to The Real News...
Europe’s Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy
As first published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The easiest way to understand Europe’s financial crisis is to look at the solutions being proposed to resolve it. They are a banker’s dream, a grab bag of giveaways that few voters would be likely to approve in a democratic referendum. Bank strategists learned not to risk...
Democracy and Debt
Has the Link been Broken? *This article appeared in the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung on December 5, 2011. Book V of Aristotle’s Politics describes the eternal transition of oligarchies making themselves into hereditary aristocracies – which end up being overthrown by tyrants or develop internal rivalries as some families decide to “take the multitude into...
Consent Needed for Debt Repayments
Hudson on the odious nature of debts encouraged by the banksters but repaid by the people through austerity.
Trade Theory Financialized
To secure its privileges and tax favoritism, the financial sector opposes government power to tax or regulate. Fighting under the banner of “free markets,” it is now fighting to centralize economic planning power in Wall Street, the City of London and other financial centers. What is remarkable is that under ostensibly democratic politics, an...
Russian Ripoff
President Putin, now Prime Minister Putin, has said that the demographic effect of just privatizing Russian real estate, and industry and following western advice has lost maybe 30 million Russians from what the normal demographic growth would be to 2050. So the effect of neo-liberal financial policy has been more devastating to Russia than...
Debt Deflation on the rise
Michael Hudson on Bonnie Faulkner’s Guns & Butter. Listen Here Guns and Butter: “Debt Deflation in Europe and America” Edited Interview by Bonnie Faulkner with Michael Hudson, September 2, 2011 (first aired on Pacifica, September 14, 2011). “Without consumption, markets are going to shrink. Companies won’t invest, stores will close, “for rent” signs will...
German Taxpayers Willingly Subsidise Bankers
NY Times, August 11, 2011 A debate between five economists on “Why Aren’t Germans Protesting?” Rightly Disgusted at the Banks A bailout, like any other government expenditure, is a tax. Someone must pay all this money. And it is unfair to tax the broad population to pay for a special interest. Instead of being...
Debt Deal – Economy Sacrificed for Military Bias
Democracy Now, August 2, 2011 After Months of Partisan Wrangling, Wall Street & Pentagon Emerge Victorious on Debt Deal AMY GOODMAN: After months of a bitterly partisan stalemate, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted in favor of raising the federal borrowing limit and avoiding a default on the national debt. The final count...
Books by Michael Hudson
