Leading up to Monday’s Democratic Party convention, Hillary chose Blue Dog Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her VP. This was followed by the Wikileaks release of Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mail files showing it acting as the Clinton Campaign Committee even to the point of using the same lawyers as her own campaign to oppose Bernie Sanders. The response across the Democratic neocon spectrum, from Anne Applebaum at the Washington Post to red-baiting Paul Krugman and the Sunday talk shows it was suggested that behind the Wikileaks to release DNC e-mails was a Russian plot to help elect Trump as their agent. Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul lent his tattered reputation to claim that Putin must have sponsored the hackers who exposed the DNC dirty tricks against ...
Trump the Neocons
“Trump Policy Will Unravel Traditional Neocons,” TRNN, July 23, 2016. SHARMINI PERIES, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, TRNN: It's the Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. On Friday, just after the Republican National Congress wrapped up with its presidential candidate, Donald Trump, Paul Krugman of the New York Times penned an article titled "Donald Trump: The Siberian Candidate." He said in it, if elected, would Donald Trump be Vladimir Putin's man in the White House? Krugman himself is worried as ludicrous and outrageous as the question sounds, the Trump campaign's recent behavior has quite a few foreign policy experts wondering, he says, just what kind of hold Mr. Putin has over the Republican nominee, and whether that influence ...
Desperate Financiers Under Zero Interest Rates
The Keiser Report returns ...
US NATO pressures EU support
“US-NATO Border Confrontation with Russia Risks Nuclear War and Loss of European Partner,” The Real News Network, July 17, 2017 Michael Hudson says that the US-led confrontational approach of NATO with Russia is driving European countries to consider disbanding or leaving the military alliance due to increased security risks JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Washington. President Obama met with NATO leaders in Warsaw last weekend to what seemed like a restatement of vows to protect Europe. Let's take a listen to what the president had to say. BARACK OBAMA: In this challenging moment, I want to take this opportunity to state clearly what will never change. And that is the unwavering commitment of the United States to the security and defense of Europe, to our transatlantic ...
Financially Approved Financed History
A Travesty of Financial History – which bank lobbyists will applaud Review of William Goetzmann, Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible (Princeton University Press, 2016) Michael Hudson Debt mounts up faster than the means to pay. Yet there is widespread lack of awareness regarding what this debt dynamic implies. From Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC to the modern world, the way in which society has dealt with the buildup of debt has been the main force transforming political relations. Financial textbook writers tell happy-face fables that depict loans only as being productive and helping debtors, not as threatening social stability. Government intervention to promote economic growth and solvency by writing down debts and protecting debtors at creditors’ expense is accused of causing an economic crisis (defined as bankers and bondholders not making ...
The Clinton Foundation?
Clinton email and Foundation TRNN July 8 2016. “Is the Real Scandal the Clinton Foundation?,” TRNN, July 8, 2016. Michael Hudson says the media has failed to look beyond the emails and into potential conflicts of interest during Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. PAUL JAY, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay. On Thursday morning, the media fest and political fest around Hillary Clinton's email scandal continued, as the head of the FBI, James Comey, spoke at a congressional House oversight committee. Here's a little clip of what was said there. But let me just foreshadow--maybe the emails aren't the real issue that should be in front of these hearings. Now, here's the chairman of the House ...
Socrates: debt and the cyclical rise and fall of societies
Last week I attended a wonderful conference in the university town of Tübingen, Germany, on “Debt: The First 3500 Years,” to bring ancient historians together to discuss David Graeber’s book Debt: The First 5000 Years. I was enlightened by two papers in particular. Doctoral fellow Moritz Hinsch from Berlin collected what Socrates (470-399 BC) and other Athenians wrote about debt, and the conference’s organizer, Prof. John Weisweiler, presented the new view of late imperial Rome as being still a long way from outright serfdom. The 99 Percent were squeezed, but “the economy” grew – in a way that concentrated growth in the hands of the One Percent. ...
The Brexit Silence
As published on Counterpunch The media in the United States have treated the British vote against remaining in the European Union (EU) as if it is populist “Trumpism,” an inarticulate right-wing vote out of ignorance at being left behind by the neoliberal economic growth policy. The fact that Donald Trump happened to be in Scotland to promote his golf course helped frame the U.S. story that depicts the Brexit vote as a “Trump vs. Hillary” psychodrama – populist anger and resentment vs. intelligent policy. What is left out of this picture is that there is a sound logic to oppose membership in the EU. It is Nigel Farage’s slogan, “Take Back Control.” The question is, from whom? Not only from “bureaucrats,” but from the pro-bank, anti-labor rules written into the eurozone’s Lisbon and ...
