Part S in the Insider's Economic Dictionary S-curve: The typical shape of growth in nature, such as human beings whose height tapers off as they reach maturity. They also typify most business cycles, which taper off after an upswing as employment, raw-materials and resource limits are approached and wages and commodity prices rise, slowing profits. The demand for specific products likewise tapers off as markets become saturated. Meanwhile, the fact that financial claims and debts tend to grow at compound interest means that financial dynamics tend to outrun the S-curve of production and consumption, creating business crises which end the upswing. Saint-Simon, Claude Henry de (1760-1825): French reformer best known for recognizing the need to replace debt relations by turning saving into equity (stock) investment. Among his followers, the Pereire brothers helped ...
US Fracking EU Sovereignty
Explosive! More to come on the Washington Consensus' latest trickery.
Vulture Funds trump Argentinian sovereignty
More at The Real News PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay. The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to review a case in which vulture funds sued to make the Argentinian government pay them 100 percent of the value of bonds, which they purchased for a fraction of the face value, let stand a lower court ruling requiring the bonds be paid in full. Reuters reports that Aurelius Capital Management, one of the lead holdout creditors seeking to settle with Argentina over sovereign debt payments from its 2002 default, said on Monday the government faces a new crisis on July 30 unless it engages in serious negotiations. Argentine officials and the holdout investors met separately, with a court-appointed mediator on Friday emerging from his ...
Escaping the dollar
More at The Real News Is the New BRICS Bank a Challenge to US Global Financial Power? Michael Hudson and Leo Panitch discuss and debate the significance of the new international development bank created by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - 6 min ago Michael Hudson 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,” available on Amazon. Leo Panitch is the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and a distinguished research professor of political science at York University in Toronto. He is the author of many books, the most recent of which include ...
Bank for Settlements annual report: Tax labor to pay bondholders.
On Boom Bust we discuss the Bank of International Settlements Report and where the US macroeconomy is heading. Starts about 4 minutes in.
No to currency slavery
From RT news Western support will allow more IMF and European lending to prop the Ukrainian currency so the Ukrainian oligarchs can move their money safely to British and US banks, economist and author Michael Hudson told RT’s Truthseeker. RT:Could you summarize for us the tried and tested steps that will lead from IMF loans, to Ukraine's best assets ending up in private Western hands - the IMF's 'knee-breaker' role as you memorably described it as? Michael Hudson: The basic principle to bear in mind is that finance today is war by non-military means. The aim of getting a country in debt is to obtain its economic surplus, ending up with its property. The main property to obtain is that which can produce exports and generate foreign exchange. For Ukraine, this means mainly ...
Ukraine: Bureaucratic Bliss
More at The Real News Transcript WORONCZUK: So, Michael, let's talk about the economic association agreement that Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine signed with the E.U. last week. Let's get a sense of what are the details of the agreement. And how does this differ from--let's say, in economic terms, from a full-fledged membership with the E.U.? HUDSON: Well, I'm going to begin by putting it in the big picture, and then I'll get to the details. The big picture is that this is a form of colonialism almost identical to what Europe did in Africa and Latin America and the Near East. What it did in the 19th century in Africa, where property was owned communally, was it would go to the chieftains of a given tribe, as it did to ...
