Hudson on the Thom Hartmann Program.
Latvia’s Economic Disaster as a Neoliberal Success Story: A Model for Europe and the US?
by Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson A generation ago the Chicago Boys and their financial supporters applauded General Pinochet’s anti-labor Chile as a success story, thanks mainly to its transformation of their Social Security into Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) that almost universally were looted by the employer grupos by the end of the 1970s. In the last decade, the Bush Administration, seeking a Trojan Horse to privatize Social Security in the United States, applauded Chile’s disastrous privatization of pension accounts (turning many over to US financial institutions) even as that nation’s voters rejected the Pinochetistas largely out of anger at the vast pension rip-off by high finance. Today’s most ...
MH in the Classroom

Michael Hudson's talk at the joint seminar on "Modern Monetary Theory" and "Monetary Circuit Theory" held at the Fields Institute on Tuesday July 3rd. Outlining his model at Canada’s Fields Institute, the world’s leading mathematical institute. At the meeting with Steve Keen, Stephanie Kelton,Nathan Tankus et al.
The Inside Man
The word is out: Treasury Secretary Geithner is the inside man for Wall St according to an explosive new book. The second half of this Keiser Report covers this latest machination in the world of financial crime. The interview has also been dubbed in Spanish. Thanks to Max & Stacy for all their investigative work at MaxKeiser.com
Modern Money and Public Purpose
Here is the recording of the presentation I gave at the Modern Money and Public Purpose seminar recently. My delivery begins at the 43 minute mark. I highly recommend Randy's presentation beforehand. Moderator: William V. Harris, William R. Shepherd Professor of History and Director, Center for the Ancient Mediterranean, Columbia University Speaker 1: L. Randall Wray, Research Director of the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability and Professor of Economics, University of Missouri-Kansas City Speaker 2: Michael Hudson, President, Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends and Distinguished Research Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City Tuesday, September 11, 2012 About the Seminar Series: Modern Money and Public Purpose is an eight-part, interdisciplinary seminar series held at Columbia Law School over the 2012-2013 academic year. The series aims to present new perspectives and progressive ...
Surviving Progress transcript
Below are the transcripts from the film Surviving Progress I was a part of. The film can be purchased here. Canada FILM group on PROGRESS 2010: The Road to Debt Serfdom Cinémaginaire, ASHOP (USA): Interview with Michael Hudson – Tapes #112-113-114 Theme: In the name of “progress,” the world is regressing to neoserfdom. Mainstream economics has become a body of assumptions selected to rationalize a “trickle-down” tax policy favoring the financial sector driving the rest of the economy into debt, turning the economic surplus into interest charges – to be recycled into yet more debt creation. Claiming that wealth at the top pulls up the rest (“the rich are job creators”), the policy inference is to shift taxes off financial wealth and property onto labor and industry. What this view leaves out of account ...
Incorporating the Rentier Sectors into a Financial Model

by Dirk Bezemer and Michael Hudson As published in the World Economic Association's World Economic Review Vol #1. ABSTRACT Current macroeconomics ignores the roles that rent, debt and the financial sector play in shaping our economy. We discuss the Classical view on rents and policy responses to the rentier sector in the 19th century. The finance, insurance & real estate sector is today’s incarnation of the rentier sector. This paper shows how financial flows can be conceptually and statistically studied separately from (but interacting with) the real sector. We discuss finance’s interaction with government and with the international economy. 1. Introduction Now that the Bubble Economy has given way to debt deflation, the world is discovering the shortcoming of models that fail to explain how most credit creation today (1) inflates asset prices without raising ...
Wall Street’s War Against the Cities
Why Bondholders Can’t – and Shouldn’t – be Paid The pace of Wall Street’s war against the 99% is quickening in preparation for the kill. Having demonized public employees for being scheduled to receive pensions on their lifetime employment service, bondholders are insisting on getting the money instead. It is the same austerity philosophy that has been forced on Greece and Spain – and the same that is prompting President Obama and Mitt Romney to urge scaling back Social Security and Medicare. Unlike the U.S. federal government, most states and cities have constitutions that prevent them from running budget deficits. This means that when they cut property taxes, they either must borrow from the wealthy, or cut back employment and public services. For many years they borrowed, paying tax-exempt interest to ...
Overview: The Bubble and Beyond:
The Road from Industrial Capitalism to Finance Capitalism and Debt Peonage Essays on Fictitious Capital, Debt Deflation and the Global Crisis Michael Hudson's new book The Bubble and Beyond can be purchased here. Preface Summary and Analytic Table of Contents Introduction: Today’s Financial Crisis and Economic Theory I. Fictitious Capital and Economic Fictions 1. Two Traditions of Financial Doctrine 2. The Magic of Compound Interest: Mathematics at the Root of the Crisis 3. How Ricardo’s Value Theory Ignored the Role of Debt 4. The Industrialization of Finance and the Financialization of Industry 5. The Use and Abuse of Mathematical Economics 6. The Financial Character of Today’s Crisis II. From Inflated Debts to Debt Deflation 7. Property is Worth Whatever a Bank Will Lend Against It 8. The Real Estate Bubble at the Core of ...
Fireside on the Great Theft
Michael Hudson's new book The Bubble and Beyond can be purchased here. A recent interview in Frankfurt's FAZ newspaper: Dr. Schirrmacher: And then, just to find a starting point, maybe we can start with the personal, and then at least I would ask you both. Maybe that is a good starting point, very basic: What is the future of Europe? So, what do you conceive what will happen, and what is going to happen? Sie können sich auch gegenseitig … Now, Michael Hudson, you are in Germany and you are known to our readers, and Sahra Wagenknecht, of course, as well. Just very briefly your background. In your DNA, in your genetic code, you have traces of Indian roots. Prof. Hudson: Well, I am one-eighth (Chippewa) Indian, so I’m half Irish, a quarter ...