An interview with Dr Simon Radford for the Church Times. IN HIS essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, published in 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote of his hope that, in the future, people would need pay no attention to the “dismal science” of his field. The study of economics would reach such maturity that ordinary people would live in luxury, able to contemplate the more important things in life, “free . . . to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue — that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is detestable”. It is easy to think that the great recession of 2008 served as a harsh refutation of this Utopian prediction. The wave ...

A detailed perspective on my new book '…..and forgive them their debts'. Hedges pushes deep into the evolution of money and debt. The concept of a debt amnesty must be understood as an act of economic liberation.  https://youtu.be/AdPukQ96vEA

by Gillian Tett, Financial Times, December 12, 2018. (Life and Arts, p. 20, Saturday, December 15, 2018).  ‘Debt is still sometimes wiped out in our modern world – through bankruptcies, defaults or sovereign debt restructuring plans – but these events are aberrations, not the norm. If you mention the word “debt”, many people will wince — especially at this time of year. For the holiday season is not just about family and festivities; it is also a bonanza of consumer spending. And when the New Year rolls around, most of us will be rueing that credit card bill.  If you want to get another perspective on debt hangovers, read American economist Michael Hudson’s new book  . . . and Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year. In ...

As published on Inequality.org Societies have tended to polarize between creditors and debtors since ancient times, but this tendency can and must be reversed. NOVEMBER 21, 2018 Today, the wealthy depict inequality in glowing colors as a byproduct of economies pulling ahead, “creating wealth” by innovations that add to prosperity. This view is unprecedented in history. From antiquity to quite recently, personal accumulation of large amounts of wealth was frowned upon, because it usually was achieved at the expense of others. One party’s gain often tended to be at the expense of others, polarizing communities by pushing many below poverty levels. The most corrosive method of gaining personal wealth, from the ancient world to today, is interest-bearing debt that mounts up with compound interest. The inability to pay has led small farmers and the poor ...

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 ...