Global Insecurity

By Sunday, December 3, 2023 Articles Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io0H1i7Xf8s RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 19th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the program where we discuss the evolving political and geopolitical economy of our time. I'm Radhika Desai. MICHAEL HUDSON: And I'm Michael Hudson. And we bring you this program with the help of our host, Ben Norton, our videographer Paul Graham, and our transcriber Zach Weisser. The carnage in Gaza has paused, though the possibility that this will open the door to a permanent resolution is remote. Little else seems to have changed. The U.S. remains doubled down on its one-sided support for a murderous Israel, the tail that wags the U.S. dog. MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, it's not only the United States that's doubling down, it's Europe that's doubling down. And it's becoming, you're seeing, they've banned protests supporting the Palestinians ...

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The Dumb Luck of Dollar Hegemony

By Sunday, November 26, 2023 Articles Permalink

https://youtu.be/Zjni3f13XMw Support Michael Hudson's unique perspective by joining his Patreon group, where we hold these quarterly discussions. Next is Thurs Dec 7th. Karl: Welcome everyone to another quarterly session with Michael. We’ve got to come up with a good nickname with these (sessions). They're great discussions and we like to have a fireside type conversation with Michael, who, of course, you all know, as one of the world's leading experts of neoliberal era we live in. And yeah, Michael, we have with Patreon now about 270 supporters. So it's absolutely fantastic that we've grown to that many.  M: I'm glad you encouraged me to start it.  K: Yeah, well, it's been a nice way to get to know a few of your supporters and having these Q&A sessions certainly helps. So, yeah, a big ...

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Economists as Hired Guns

By Saturday, November 25, 2023 Interviews No tags Permalink

https://youtu.be/1q8wgMQjDFI Nov 13 2023 with Steve Keen Pod version Published Nov 24 How Finance Capitalism Ruined the World - Dr. Michael Hudson & Dr. Steve Keen Dr. Michael Hudson is an American economist, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, former Wall Street analyst, political consultant, commentator and journalist. Dr. Steve Keen is an Australian economist and author. A post-Keynesian, he criticizes neoclassical economics as inconsistent, unscientific and empirically unsupported. Our conversation examines the false dichotomy of capitalism v. socialism and considers the true dichotomy, which is industrial capitalism v. finance capitalism. Hudson and Keen argue that the transition to finance capitalism, where unearned income is considered economic growth, has truly sown the seeds to ruin the world. Michael Shilo DeLay We came down ...

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Understanding America’s Post-Industrial Economy

By Tuesday, November 21, 2023 Interviews , Permalink

https://youtu.be/pQkwnczhObQ?feature=shared   GLENN DIESEN: Welcome to today’s program. My name is Glenn Diesen. I’m a professor at the University of Southeastern Norway. With me is my colleague Alexander Mercouris from the very informative and popular Duran. The guest today is none other than the excellent Michael Hudson, a very renowned economist. He’s written brilliant books, which I can’t recommend enough, on on the industrial economy, the financial economy, the process of debt, empire, collapse. So he’s really one of the great economists of our time. So the reason we really wanted to talk to him today is because we’re living in an age where the world is undergoing tremendous transformation. I would argue that many of the conflicts and wars we currently have have at least some origin in economics. And what has gone ...

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The EU’s Desperate Need for a New Economic Framework

By Monday, November 20, 2023 Interviews Permalink

WAR Against NATO Not Russia | China vs. USA | BRICS | Michael Hudson https://youtu.be/rPib_bhpwJk Dialogue works (Nima): We look at this war in Ukraine, it's been 18 months in this war in Ukraine and Ukraine got devastated by this war. What was the endgame for the U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine? Michael Hudson: Well, it wasn't really an endgame so much as a fantasy. The United States actually believed that it would enable Ukraine to drain Russia's resources. That was the main thing. It had no intention or expectation that Ukraine could actually beat Russia. What it thought was, that if they could get a puppet leader like Zelensky to fight to the last Ukrainian. Every Ukrainian that died would at least absorb one Russian bullet, and that would help deplete Russia's ...

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Were the Biblical Prophets Anti-Semitic?

By Friday, November 17, 2023 Articles , Permalink

If the prophets of ancient Israel such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malachi and Amos were alive today, Benjamin Netanyahu would accuse them of anti-Semitism for daring to describe his government as a travesty of what the Mosaic covenant was all about. A common thread running throughout the Jewish Bible – Christianity’s Old Testament – was to criticize kings, the wealthy and corrupt courts for violating the Mosaic commandments to create a fair and equitable society protecting the poor from the economic oppression of debt bondage, and loss of their land. If the prophets were summoned to give judgment today, it is Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party and the steeply unequal economy of Israel that would be condemned as violating the most basic laws of Biblical Judaism. Prophet after prophet described the Lord ...

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Israel as a Landed Aircraft Carrier

By Monday, November 13, 2023 Interviews Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AeAfFfTqMk&t=1s Transcript BEN NORTON: Why does the United States so strongly support Israel? In this video today, I’m going to be explaining the geopolitical and economic reasons why Israel is such an important part of U.S. foreign policy and Washington’s attempt to dominate not only the region of the Middle East, but really the entire world. For this analysis today, I had the privilege of being joined by the economist Michael Hudson. I will bring him in later to provide further details about this topic. But first, I want to highlight some very important basic context to understand this relationship. It is crucial to stress that Israel is an extension of U.S. geopolitical power in one of the most critically important regions of the world.  In fact, it was current U.S. President Joe Biden, back in ...

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Multipolarity: China, Russia, Israel, India, and the difficult birth of a new world

By Friday, October 20, 2023 Interviews Permalink

Geopolitical Hour, October 19, 2021.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHTmIt131P8 RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 17th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the show that examines the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of our time. I’m Radhika Desai. MICHAEL HUDSON: And I’m Michael Hudson. RADHIKA DESAI: And today, once again, we are joined by the roving reporter extraordinaire, Pepe Escobar. Welcome again, Pepe. PEPE ESCOBAR: Thank you. Enormous pleasure. Great. Now, this show has been a little bit delayed because I, particularly, I have been traveling. RADHIKA DESAI: Of course, Pepe travels all the time. He’s always joining us from all sorts of extraordinary locations. Today, he’s in Bangkok. But I have particularly been traveling to conferences in China. And then I went to the Valdai Conference in Sochi, where Pepe was also there. And of course, I have returned, as ...

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Twice as Important

By Friday, October 13, 2023 Articles, Globalism and its Institutions , Permalink

IMF showdown with China in Morocco, October 12, 2023 This year’s annual IMF/World Bank meetings in Morocco are the most explicitly confrontational yet by US/NATO diplomacy toward China and its fellow BRICS+ allies. It is not really rivalry, because US neoliberal financial policy is so different from the aims that the BRICS+ countries have been developing at their own recent international meetings. At issue is not only what countries will be the major beneficiaries of future IMF and World Bank loan operations, but whether the world will back US unipolar dominance? Or will it start to move explicitly toward a multipolar philosophy of mutual support to increase living standards and prosperity? This is counter to the anti-labor austerity imposed by US demands, using these two organizations as arms of its New ...

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A BRICS+ Bank: How would it really function?

By Saturday, October 7, 2023 Articles Permalink

This first week of October has seen U.S. interest rates soar to the 5% level on long-term Treasury bonds. That has made long-term Treasuries one of most attractive investment vehicles in the world, or even the most attractive. One obvious result is that countries aiming to dedollarize their central-bank reserves would make an untimely decision move out of the dollar at this point. To avoid holding dollars in the form of US Treasury securities would mean holding foreign reserves denominated in a currency that is declining against the dollar. No other government is willing to make its currency so attractive to international investors (including central banks) by raising interest-rates so high.  At 5%, US bonds are the most secure and best investment around. There is a huge move into the dollar – ...

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