June, 2023 | Michael Hudson

America has Just Destroyed a Great Empire

By Michael Thursday, June 29, 2023 Articles Russia, Washington Consensus Permalink

Herodotus (History, Book 1.53) tells the story of Croesus, king of Lydia c. 585-546 BC in what is now Western Turkey and the Ionian shore of the Mediterranean. Croesus conquered Ephesus, Miletus and neighboring Greek-speaking realms, obtaining tribute and booty that made him one of the richest rulers of his time. But these victories and wealth led to arrogance and hubris. Croesus turned his eyes eastward, ambitious to conquer Persia, ruled by Cyrus the Great. Having endowed the region’s cosmopolitan Temple of Delphi with substantial silver and gold, Croesus asked its Oracle whether he would be successful in the conquest that he had planned. The Pythia priestess answered: “If you go to war against Persia, you will destroy a great empire.” Croesus therefore set out to attack Persia c. 547 BC. Marching ...

Third World-Like Debt Crisis

By Michael Monday, June 26, 2023 Interviews Geopolitical Economy Hour Permalink

A new Third World debt crisis? The need for system change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uxyjIFqi4o RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to this 12th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the fortnightly show on the political and geopolitical economy of our times. I'm Radhika Desai. MICHAEL HUDSON: And I'm Michael Hudson. RADHIKA DESAI: And today we are joined by Anne Pettifor to discuss an urgent issue of our time, that of the third world debt crisis. As we record this, this is the topic of the Summit on New Global Financing Pact called by Emmanuel Macron in Paris. And we couldn't find a more authoritative guest for this show. Anne Pettifor does not really need any introduction, and I'm only going to give one to remind ourselves of the range of her contributions. She's a prolific writer on issues relating ...

Yellen’s Daydream

By Michael Tuesday, June 20, 2023 Interviews China Permalink

Discussion by Michael Hudson with Kin Chi Lau, Global University, Hong Kong, June 5, 2023 There's a big dam on the Dnieper River that supplies all of the water to Crimea and they blow it up. Thousands of homes have been flooded. Naturally, the Ukrainians said the Russians did it. The reason that Crimea was assigned to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1960s was because the water and electricity area all came from the dam in the north of Crimea. All of that was blown up and flooded. When you blow up a dam, imagine that was happening in China and how that would be blown up. That's what happened. They blew it up. The dam on the Dnieper River that supplies water as well as electricity to Crimea was blown ...

A Peculiar Grift

By Michael Tuesday, June 20, 2023 Interviews No tags Permalink

https://youtu.be/pEHrI_llP8I Patrick Lovell Hi, my name is Patrick Lovell, and I want to welcome you to our latest effort in this podcast that I find myself incredibly compelled to do considering the confusion that we're all in the midst of. I'm a producer of a five part docuseries known as The Con that is currently available at www.thecon.tv. It's going to be whitewashed from history here shortly because unfortunately, there's no market for truth, which has led me to try to do everything I can given the massive confusion in this world about how things actually operate, considering everything that has come down. Now, the working title of this, and we'll try to sort this out as we move forward, but I'm thinking to myself, this is either the mechanics of corruption ...

Sending Dollars Abroad … via the Military

By Michael Monday, June 12, 2023 Interviews Super Imperialism Permalink

In this week’s episode of the Radio Sputnik New Rules podcast, host Dimitri Simes Jr. speaks with economist Michael Hudson about the Biden administration's 'class war' against working Americans, why US reindustrialization efforts are unlikely to succeed, the real purpose of sanctions, and de-dollarization. The podcast was written up on Sputnik Globe. For today's episode, we want to talk about what's going on in the US economy. Because when you look at the discussion that's going on, you see a lot of contradictory narratives. On the one hand, you have people like Bank of America's CEO Brian Moynihan, who said on Sunday that the country may face a mild recession later this year. You see a lot of major CEOs making similar predictions. By contrast, the Biden administration ...

Buying US Debt Subsidizes Imperialism

By Michael Monday, June 5, 2023 Interviews China, Super Imperialism Permalink

Michael Hudson | A piece of advice: Buying U.S. debt is to provide ammunition for U.S. military expansion Source: Observer Network 2023-06-01 08:01 The June 5 deadline referred by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has fallen, and the US debt ceiling negotiations have entered the final congressional voting juncture. House Speaker McCarthy, who was eager to reach an agreement with President Biden, faced the threat of being kicked out because the far right of the Republican Party was dissatisfied with the negotiating plan with too many compromises. In the heated stage of debt ceiling negotiations, how do Americans view this partisanship and the snowballing expansion of U.S. debt behind the partisanship? The current crisis in Ukraine is still stalemate. The United States and its allies have joined forces to contain China. As the second ...

On Obama, Castro & General McArthur

By Michael Friday, June 2, 2023 Interviews Patreon Permalink

Recorded on 2023-03-02 https://youtu.be/2gxKm43xS2U Join our next Patreon discussion Thurs June 8, 530pm as a Patreon subscriber. We have 256 patreons supporting 6,000 visitors to this site per day. KARL FITZGERALD: Welcome everyone to our quarterly Q&A session here with our beloved Patreon supporters. Thank you so much for supporting Michael and his work as he continues to forge ahead, bringing some clarity to this world of mystifying news that just comes at him left, right, and center. Michael, we were just talking about your family. What was it like growing up in a household where you had so many socialist influences and people of note coming to visit. What was an average dinner table conversation like? MICHAEL HUDSON: My father was pretty quiet. He would only speak mainly when there were meetings at ...