U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses

By Sunday, July 21, 2019 Globalism and its Institutions, Speeches Permalink

Keynote Paper delivered at the 14th Forum of the World Association for Political Economy, July 21, 2019. Today’s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic surpluses. Countries that do not give the United States control of their oil and financial sectors or privatize their key sectors are being isolated by a United States imposing trade sanctions and unilateral tariffs giving special advantages to U.S. producers in violation of free trade agreements with European, Asian and other countries. This global fracture has an increasingly military cast. U.S. officials justify tariffs and import quotas ...

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De-Dollarizing the American Financial Empire

By Thursday, July 11, 2019 Interviews , , Permalink

Guns and Butter. July 3, 2019 Imperialism is getting something for nothing. It is a strategy to obtain other countries’ surplus without playing a productive role, but by creating an extractive rentier system. An imperialist power obliges other countries to pay tribute. Of course, America doesn’t come right out and tell other countries, “You have to pay us tribute,” like Roman emperors told the provinces they governed. U.S. diplomats simply insist that other countries invest their balance-of-payments inflows and official central-bank savings in US dollars, especially U.S. Treasury IOUs. This Treasury-bill standard turns the global monetary and financial system into a tributary system. That is what pays the costs of U.S. military spending, including its 800 military bases throughout the world. I’m Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter, Dr. Michael Hudson. ...

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Food Blackmail, the Washington Consensus and Freedom

By Monday, June 24, 2019 Globalism and its Institutions, Interviews Permalink

  Michael Hudson discusses his seminal work of 1972, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, a critique of how the US exploits foreign economies through IMF and World bank debt; difference between the IMF and World Bank; World Bank dysfunctional from the outset; loans made in foreign currency only; policy to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export plantation crops; US food and monetary imperialism; U.S. agricultural protectionism built into the postwar global system; promotion of dependency on the US as food supplier; food blackmail; perpetration of world poverty preferred; no encouragement of land reform; privatization of the public domain; America aided, not foreign economies; exploitation of mineral deposits; bribery; foreign nations politically controlled at the top; veto power for US only. Aired: June 19, 2019 Visit Guns ...

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Cold War 2.0

By Thursday, June 13, 2019 Globalism and its Institutions No tags Permalink

Trump’s Trade Threats are really Cold War 2.0 President Trump has threatened China’s President Xi that if they don’t meet and talk at the upcoming G20 meetings in Japan, June 29-30, the United States will not soften its tariff war and economic sanctions against Chinese exports and technology. Some meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders will indeed take place, but it cannot be anything like a real negotiation. Such meetings normally are planned in advance, by specialized officials working together to prepare an agreement to be announced by their heads of state. No such preparation has taken place, or can take place. Mr. Trump doesn’t delegate authority. He opens negotiations with a threat. That costs nothing, and you never know (or at least, he never knows) whether he can get a freebee. His ...

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A debt Jubilee for America?

By Monday, May 6, 2019 History of the Near East Permalink

by Paul Craig Roberts As school children my friends and I were very interested in archaeology and ancient civilizations. We read all the available books. My best friend intended to become an archaeologist and to explore ancient ruins about which we imagined more than we actually knew. As far as I can discern these days no one in the general population has any thoughts of Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Ur. For the American young the 1940s, not 2,500 BC, is the ancient past. A time so long ago that it predates the Old Testament by 2,000 years is probably imagined as a brutal and politically incorrect time of inhumanity and human sacrifice. In short, a script for a horror fantasy movie or a video game. In actual fact, these civilizations were ...

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Are debts sins?

By Monday, May 6, 2019 Articles Permalink

For millennia we have been told that Jesus Christ died for our sins. So much focus on sin hasn’t left much room for theologians to talk about Jesus’ thoughts on economic justice. But what if, as a social reformer, Jesus was killed because he talked about reforming the economics of his day? Writing-off debt has been a cornerstone of economic reform for millennia, so could it have been debt that Jesus wanted to do away with? Ross Ashcroft travels to New York to meet economist Michael Hudson, whose latest book explains why ancient debt principles have never been more relevant than today. LIKE Renegade Inc. on Facebook here FOLLOW Renegade Inc. at @Renegade_Inc PODCAST https://soundcloud.com/rttv/sets/renegade-inc  

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