Michael Hudson

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…and forgive them their debts

By Michael Monday, August 13, 2018 Books and forgive them their debts Permalink

I'm very excited to announce that my new book, ...and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption — From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year (ISLET-Verlag Dresden), is available now! Thank you! You can learn more about the book below. Michael Copy for book description and advance praise: ...and forgive them their debts Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year In ...and forgive them their debts, renowned professor of economics, Michael Hudson – and one of the few who could see the 2008 financial crisis coming – takes us on an epic journey through the economies of ancient civilizations. For the past 40 years in conjunction with the Harvard Peabody Museum, he and his colleagues have documented the archeological record and history of debt, and how societies have ...

On these times, with Jimmy Dore

By Michael Thursday, February 28, 2019 Interviews wall st Permalink

An interview on the popular Jimmy Dore show. 2019 - How did we get here?

Super-Imperialism at the Pentagon

By Michael Wednesday, February 13, 2019 Interviews de-dollarization Permalink

picture: Tilo Gräser / Sputniknews Germany An interview on Sputnik News - January 23rd. text / interview: Alexander Boos / Sputniknews Germany Professor Hudson, in January you warned in Berlin at the Rosa Luxemburg Conference, about the still "dangerous" US financial imperialism. The US uses "financial weapons“, you said. Can you explain that briefly? After World War II, the US created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund IMF. These instruments were created as essential control mechanisms to control other countries financially. This became particularly apparent after the US abolished its gold-standard in 1971. Since then, the US has always sought to force other states to hold their own currency reserves in US dollars. That means that those governments must then obtain the money through the US Federal Reserve. To make it ...

Venezuela as the pivot for New Internationalism?

By Michael Wednesday, February 6, 2019 Interviews de-dollarization, Imperialism, Venezuela Permalink

Saker interview with Michael Hudson on Venezuela, February 7, 2019 Introduction: There is a great deal of controversy about the true shape of the Venezuelan economy and whether Hugo Chavez’ and Nicholas Maduro’s reform and policies were crucial for the people of Venezuela or whether they were completely misguided and precipitated the current crises. Anybody and everybody seems to have very strong held views about this. But I don’t simply because I lack the expertise to have any such opinions. So I decided to ask one of the most respected independent economists out there, Michael Hudson, for whom I have immense respect and whose analyses (including those he co-authored with Paul Craig Roberts) seem to be the most credible and honest ones you can find. In fact, Paul Craig Roberts considers ...

Heeding the lesson of the ancients

By Michael Friday, February 1, 2019 Articles No tags Permalink

An interview with Dr Simon Radford for the Church Times. IN HIS essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, published in 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote of his hope that, in the future, people would need pay no attention to the “dismal science” of his field. The study of economics would reach such maturity that ordinary people would live in luxury, able to contemplate the more important things in life, “free . . . to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue — that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is detestable”. It is easy to think that the great recession of 2008 served as a harsh refutation of this Utopian prediction. The wave ...

Trump’s Brilliant Strategy to Dismember U.S. Dollar Hegemony

By Michael Friday, February 1, 2019 Articles de-dollarization, globalization, superimperialism, Washington Consensus Permalink

The end of America’s unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial institutions. This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere ...

Guns & Butter: The Vocabulary of Economic Deception

By Michael Friday, December 21, 2018 Articles, Interviews No tags Permalink

This is Guns and Butter, October 8, 2018. Transcript The aim of classical economics was to tax unearned income, not wages and profits. The tax burden was to fall on the landlord class first and foremost, then on monopolists and bankers. The result was to be a circular flow in which taxes would be paid mainly out of rent and other unearned income. The government would spend this revenue on infrastructure, schools and other productive investment to help make the economy more competitive. Socialism was seen as a program to create a more efficient capitalist economy along these lines. I'm Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter, Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show: The Vocabulary of Economic Deception. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the ...

Keiser: Lifting the Debt Weight

By Michael Tuesday, December 18, 2018 Interviews No tags Permalink

Max and Stacy explore how a clean state restores economies. I follow David Graeber in the second half.

Hedges, Hudson: Debt-Forgiveness or Feudalism

By Michael Sunday, December 16, 2018 Articles No tags Permalink

A detailed perspective on my new book '…..and forgive them their debts'. Hedges pushes deep into the evolution of money and debt. The concept of a debt amnesty must be understood as an act of economic liberation. https://youtu.be/AdPukQ96vEA

FT: Wiping the slate clean: is it time to reconsider debt forgiveness?

By Michael Friday, December 14, 2018 Articles No tags Permalink

by Gillian Tett, Financial Times, December 12, 2018. (Life and Arts, p. 20, Saturday, December 15, 2018). ‘Debt is still sometimes wiped out in our modern world – through bankruptcies, defaults or sovereign debt restructuring plans – but these events are aberrations, not the norm. If you mention the word “debt”, many people will wince — especially at this time of year. For the holiday season is not just about family and festivities; it is also a bonanza of consumer spending. And when the New Year rolls around, most of us will be rueing that credit card bill. If you want to get another perspective on debt hangovers, read American economist Michael Hudson’s new book . . . and Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year. In ...

Financial Time’s Best Books of 2018

By Michael Sunday, November 25, 2018 Books and forgive them their debts Permalink

Included in Martin Wolf's (FT) favourite books of 2018: . . . and Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year, by Michael Hudson, ISLET-Verlag, RRP $29.95 The American economist Hudson has written a fascinating book on the historical antecedents of the Mosaic debt jubilee. The work of Assyriologists has shown that by the third millennium BC, the rulers of the ancient Near East understood the necessity of repeated debt forgiveness. The alternative was, he writes, “economic polarisation, bondage and collapse”. The relevance of this history to the world of today seems clear: debt is necessary; too much debt is disastrous.