The 1% and Piketty

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More at The Real News Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. And welcome to this edition of The Hudson Report. Now joining us is Michael Hudson. Michael is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His two newest books are The Bubble and Beyond and Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents. Thanks for joining us, Michael. MICHAEL HUDSON, PROF. ECONOMICS, UNIV. OF MISSOURI, KANSAS CITY: Thank you, Jessica. DESVARIEUX: So, Michael, this week we're going to be talking about the very popular book by French economist Thomas Piketty. It's a 700-page book that takes on the topic of income inequality. Why do you think so many people are talking about this book? What's in it that has people buzzing? HUDSON: Statistics. It shows that wealth ...

Obama channeling Cheney?

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More at The Real News I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. And welcome to this edition of The Hudson Report. Now joining us is Michael Hudson. He is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His two newest books are The Bubble and Beyond and Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents. Thanks for joining us, Michael. MICHAEL HUDSON, PROF. ECONOMICS, UMKC: Thank you, Jessica. DESVARIEUX: So, Micheal, what are you tracking this week? HUDSON: The big news is all about the Ukraine. And it's about the events that happened in the shootings on February 20. Late last week, the German television program ARD Monitor, which is sort of their version of 60 Minutes here, had an investigative report of the shootings in Maidan, and what they found out is that contrary ...

Anti-Russian sentiment a resource play diversion

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Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. Hundreds of pro-Russian protesters have seized public buildings in Eastern Ukrainian cities. They're demanding referendums to secede from Ukraine in order to become a part of Russia. Ukrainian officials have blamed Putin for this continued unrest, but it should be noted that Ukraine is a major transit route for natural gas exports to Europe from Russia, and now Russia is warning Ukrainian officials that they need to pay back the $2.2 billion debt owed to the Russian natural gas company Gazprom. German and French officials are also working towards a quick implementation of a $14-18 billion International Monetary Fund loan package to the Ukraine. Now joining us to discuss all of this is our guest, Michael Hudson. Michael is ...

R is for Rentier

The latest instalment to the Insider's Economic Dictionary. Race to the bottom: A term for dog-eat-dog competition by which countries compete by cutting wage levels so as to produce in the cheapest market, not by raising wages and labor productivity. The effect is to shrink the circular flow between producers and employee-consumers, leading to declining living standards. Under these circumstances productivity is increased only by working the existing labor force more intensively and cutting back medical insurance, old-age pensions and other social welfare expenditures. (See Free Market.) The state of Alabama shows the inner contradiction inherent in this policy. When the state cut back educational and health spending in order to minimize taxes, ostensibly to attract business, global companies pulled out on the ground that its labor force was too low-skilled and ...

P is for Ponzi

Part P in The Insiders Economic Dictionary. Panic: The abrupt culminating stage of the business cycle, in which inflated asset prices collapse in price as financial securities and properties are sold to pay off debts. Parallel Universe: The objective of modern economic methodology. A hypothetical exercise in science fiction depicting a world that conceivably could exist, given a sufficient number of internally consistent assumptions. (See Neoclassical Economics.) Parasite: A “free luncher,” from the Latin word meaning an uninvited guest brought along to a meal or crashing the party. Parasites avoid detection by camouflaging themselves as part of the host itself, and then disable the host’s brain to prevent it from taking counter-measures to protect its own growth. The economic analogue most often cited as parasitic is rentiers. The objective of such rent-seeking activity ...