Michael Hudson says Greece’s Finance Minister Varoufakis is proposing austerity on the banking class rather than on the working class to balance the budget. SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore. The four-month extension secured by the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, on Friday came with the condition that Greece provide a list of measures to quell the concerns of its international lenders, especially the German banks represented by the finance ministers in Brussels, who feared that Athens might bail on the promises to cut spending and implement austerity measures. So, on Sunday, Athens provided that list. ...
U-V: Usury to Vested Interests
Parts U-V in the Insider's Economic Dictionary Underdevelopment: The term coined by Andre Gunder Frank to describe the policies which former European colonies and more contemporary third-world countries have been turned into indebted raw-materials exporters rather than balanced economies capable of feeding themselves. (See World System.) Unearned income: See Free Lunch. Unexpected. Whenever bad economic news is announced in the United States, the media almost always attach the adjective “unexpected” to it. This is because it is deemed politically incorrect to expect bad news – to expect unemployment to rise, or to expect retail sales to be down. To accurately expect bad news may be realistic, but to anticipate this reality is something like becoming a premature anti-fascist. So it has become almost obligatory for reporters to show that their heart is “in ...
T is for Trickle-Down
Part T in the Insider's Economic Dictionary Tableau Économique: The first formal national-income account, developed by the Physiocrat Francois Quesnay on the analogy of the circulation of blood within the human body. (See Economist, Say’s Law.) Taxation: The way in which a government gives value to money by accepting it in payment of taxes or for public services (see State Theory of Money and Chartalism). The basic fiscal-financial principle at work is that whatever revenue the tax collector relinquishes is available to be pledged for debt service. Without taxation, much more of the economic surplus would be taken by the financial sector, especially inasmuch as government money has less basis for issuing its own money and credit as the tax base shrinks. The political maxim that taxes are what society’s victors ...
Ukraine denouement
The Russian loan and the IMF’s One-Two Punch The fate of Ukraine is now shifting from the military battlefield back to the arena that counts most: that of international finance. Kiev is broke, having depleted its foreign reserves on waging war that has destroyed its industrial export and coal mining capacity in the Donbass (especially vis-à-vis Russia, which normally has bought 38 percent of Ukraine’s exports). Deeply in debt (with €3 billion falling due on December 20 to Russia), Ukraine faces insolvency if the IMF and Europe do not release new loans next month to pay for new imports as well as Russian and foreign bondholders. Finance Minister Natalia Yaresko announced on Friday that she hopes to see the money begin to flow in by early March. But Ukraine must meet conditions that ...
Ukraine: Victims Pay
SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to the Michael Hudson report on The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore. A ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine has been agreed to, following a marathon all-night, 17-hour negotiation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko. They were flanked byother European leaders keeping vigil. Russia and Ukraine may have many differences, but what they have in common is a looming economic crisis, with oil prices taking a dive on the Russian side and a very expensive war they were not counting on on the Ukrainian side. Joining us now to talk about all of this is Michael Hudson. He is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His upcoming book is titled Killing the ...
The National Interest
James Carden, “Bretton Woods: The Real Threat to Ukraine's Sovereignty?” The National Interest, February 2, 2015. Tom Friedman and George Soros believe Russia is the greatest threat to Ukraine. History suggests the IMF may be far more dangerous. When politicos and pundits wander off onto some half-baked historical analogy, it more often than not will have to do with comparing this or that current event to (if bad) Munich or (if very bad) 9/11. If the event is praiseworthy, it is likely be compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall or VE Day. When a politician as peripatetic as Mrs. Clinton does it, as when she compared Vladimir Putin to Adolph Hitler last March, one could reasonably enough chalk it up to fatigue. It is quite another thing, however, when a ...
