IMMR CoffeeHouse Discussion Forum # 8 Full Transcript (EDITED VERSION) Thurs. Dec. 19, 2019 Michael Hudson on how debt money has pushed the US and European economies to their financial limit. Followed by an open discussion forum. About the speaker: Michael Hudson is an economist and economic historian with a PhD from New York University. Dr. Hudson teaches at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and is associated with the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. Dr. Hudson's main research focus is on debt, in all its variations and throughout history going as far back as Bronze Age Mesopotamia. Leading questions are how debt comes into being, when and how it creates economic and societal problems, and what measures have been adopted, or can be adopted, in order to deal with ...

My book “Super Imperialism” was about how the United States has gained a free lunch by establishing the dollar as international reserve currency by replacing gold. I also showed that the U.S. balance of payments deficit is almost entirely military related to support its 800 bases around the world. Ending the gold-exchange standard in 1971 created a situation in which the excess U.S. dollars thrown of by the U.S. payments deficit end up in foreign central banks. For these central banks, the inflow of surplus dollars poses the problem of what do we do with them. Central banks don't buy stocks and bonds, or control of corporations, because that is risky and also does not directly help their own economy. So central banks buy US Treasury bonds and bills – IOUs ...

Trump's claim that China is paying for the tariffs is completely false and basically serves to redirect income from his poor supporters to his wealthy supporters. Not only that, the policy will have the consequence of further isolating the United States, says Michael Hudson. unsplash-logoPang Yuhao

Control of oil has long been a key aim of U.S. foreign policy. The Paris climate agreements and any other Green programs to reduce the pace of global warming are viewed as threatening the aim of dominating world energy markets by keeping economies dependent on oil under U.S. control. Also blocking U.S. willingness to help stem global warming is the oil industry’s economic and hence political power. Its product is not only energy but also global warming, along with plastic pollution. This fatal combination of the national security state’s mentality and oil industry lobbying threatens to destroy the planet’s climate. The prospect of raising temperatures and sea levels along the coasts while inland regions suffer drought is viewed simply as collateral damage to the geopolitics of oil. The State Department is ...

Trump’s New Tariffs on China Help Pay for his Corporate Tax Cut, TRNN, August 2, 2019, Trump's claim that China is paying for the tariffs is completely false and basically serves to redirect income from his poor supporters to his wealthy supporters. Not only that, the policy will have the consequence of further isolating the United States, says Michael Hudson GREG WILPERT: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore. President Trump announced on Thursday via Twitter that trade negotiations with China have stalled and that he will now impose a 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of goods imported from China. At a rally later in the day on Thursday, Trump said the following. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I just announced another 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of ...

Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be. That point inevitably arrives on the liabilities side of the economy’s balance sheet. But what of the asset side? One person’s debt is a creditor’s claim for payment. This is defined as “savings,” even though banks simply create credit endogenously on their own computers without needing any prior savings. When debts can’t be paid and debtors default, what happens to these creditors? As President Obama showed, banks and bondholders can be bailed out by new Federal Reserve money creation. That is what the $4.6 trillion in Quantitative Easing since 2008 was all about. The Fed has spent the last few years supporting stock market prices (and holding down gold prices) by manipulating the forward option markets. But this artificial life support to keep the debt overhead ...