On finance, real estate and the powers of neoliberalism
Professor Michael Hudson discusses the globalisation fallout as new trading blocs distance themselves from US dollar denominated trade. Will the US be able to maintain its imperialist tendencies in light of these trends? How much further can the rentiers push their free-for-all? The show finishes with an overview of Michael’s new book ‘And forgive them our debts’. Show notes and subscribe.
At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth is hidden in British jurisdictions and Britain and its dependencies are the largest global players in the world of international finance.
10 Years Since Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy – Did the Economy Really Recover? September 19, 2018 MARC STEINER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Marc Steiner. Great to have you with us once again. On September 15, 2008, the financial meltdown began with the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers. That was 10 years ago. The shock waves that hit the economy threw 9 million families out of their homes who could not afford to pay their rising mortgages. So Congress and the president in the 1990s killed Glass-Steagall, written in 1933 to save us from the excesses of the financial industry. And then Congress gave us Dodd-Frank in the wake of the 2008 crisis that bailed out Wall Street, but not America. And now Trump seems to continue the process with killing Dodd-Frank ...
Wall Street did not let the Lehman Brothers crisis go to waste. The banks that have paid the largest fines for financial fraud are now much bigger and more profitable. The victims of their junk mortgage loans are poorer, and the economy is facing debt deflation. Was it worth it? What was not saved was the economy. Today’s financial malaise for pension funds, state and local budgets and underemployment is largely a result of the 2008 bailout, not the crash. What was saved was not only the banks – or more to the point, as Sheila Bair pointed out, their bondholders – but the financial overhead that continues to burden today’s economy. Also saved was the idea that the economy needs to keep the financial sector solvent by an exponential growth of new ...
With Max Keiser on the history of debt from the Bronze Age onwards. Max poses the question, has a historical precedent been set with the bailing out of creditors, not debtors in 2008?
