economic history | Michael Hudson

The Democrats Role in Distracting with Identity Politics

By Michael Monday, February 22, 2021 Interviews economic history Permalink

Vrettos 2021 The Radical Imagination episode February 10, 2021 https://youtu.be/C8EC9c2u5OU Vrettos: 1. We're waiting to see how the rhetoric of the new Biden administration will play out in actual policies. Hudson: Biden’s long political career has been right-wing. He’s the senator from Delaware, the country’s most pro-corporate state – which is why most U.S. corporations are incorporated there. As such, he represents the banking and credit-card industry. He sponsored the regressive bankruptcy “reform” written and put into his hands by the credit-card companies. As a budget hawk, he’s rejected MMT, and also “Medicare for all” as if it is too expensive for the government to afford – thereby making the private sector afford to pay 18% of US GDP for health-insurance monopolies. Hardly by surprise, Biden has chosen cabinet members as corporate lobbyists, including ...

Keen, Hudson Unpick Historical Path to Global Recovery

By Michael Wednesday, November 30, 2016 Interviews economic history Permalink

REAL VISION INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: Featuring: Michael Hudson, Steve Keen Published date: 22nd of November 2016 Synopsis: With two renegade economists in one room in London for 90 minutes you can expect some pretty controversial opinions about the current economic establishment. This film has all the makings of a Real Vision classic, as Steve Keen interviews professor and author, Michael Hudson, sharing their radical views and an extraordinary depth of knowledge. Discussing the complacency and complicity of traditional economic models, as taught in universities and adopted by central banks, Michael and Steve take us on a journey from a solar system to a galaxy of thought, taking in the history of economics to solutions for the ongoing global depression. Subscriber video link The content and use of this transcription is intended for the use of ...

How the U.S. Treasury avoided Chronic Deflation by Relinquishing Monetary Control to Wall Street

By Michael Wednesday, October 28, 2015 Articles, Financial, Monetary economic history, Financial sector, wall st Permalink

As published in the Social Sciences Research Network Michael Hudson University of Missouri, Economics Department, 211 Haig Hall, 5120 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA and Peking University, No.5 Yiheruan Road, Haidan District, P.O. Box 1008/71m, Beijing, P.R. China The Eurozone today is going into the same deflationary situation that the U.S. did under Jackson’s destruction of the Second Bank, and the post-Civil War budget surpluses that deflated the economy. But whereas the Fed’s creation was designed to inflate the U.S. economy, Europe’s European Central Bank is designed to deflate it — in the interest of commercial banks in both cases. 1. Introduction Deflation was the main U.S. financial problem prior to 1913. To replace the Treasury conducting its fiscal operations independently from the banking system, New York banks urged more power over public finances and ...

Sovereignty in the Ancient Near East

By Michael Saturday, April 25, 2015 Books, Interviews Ancient Near East, Debt, economic history, wall st Permalink

Prof Michael Hudson on the Ancient Near East by Renegadeeconomists on Mixcloud 04/01/2015 An interview on the new book - Labor in the Ancient World, the latest in our series on the Ancient Near East, co-edited with Piotr Steinkeller. Support our work by buying a copy. Karl: Welcome to the Renegade Economists with your host, Karl Fitzgerald. This week we’re stepping back in time, way back some 10,000 years BC into the world of archaeology, Egyptology and Assyriology. Yes, it’s time for another special with Professor Michael Hudson. That’s right, Michael Hudson back on the show, he’s got a new book called Labor in the Ancient World and I asked him to give a precis on the background to this very interesting study. Hang on for another riveting conversation here on 3CR’s Renegade ...

China – Avoid the West’s Debt Overhead: A Land Tax is needed to hold down Housing Prices

By Michael Monday, July 22, 2013 Articles China, economic history, neoliberalism Permalink

How can China avoid the “Western financial disease” – a real estate bubble followed by defaults and foreclosures? The U.S. and European economies originally sought to avoid this fate by taxing the location’s site value. A rent tax was the focus of Progressive Era reforms. Enacting a rent tax remains China’s main challenge to accompany its privatization of real estate and natural resources. If land rent were fully taxed, it would not be paid to banks as interest for rising mortgage loans – and governments would not have to tax income and sales. Holding down housing debt will reduce labor’s cost of living, but not its living standards. While Western economies shrink in response to debt deflation and fiscal austerity, ...

Reality economics

By Michael Wednesday, December 19, 2012 Books economic history Permalink

A review of Norbert Häring and Niall Douglas, Economists and the Powerful (London: Anthem Press, 2012). “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” And if they would destroy economies, they first create a wealthy class on top, and let human nature do the rest. The acquisition of power soon leads to its abuse, to economic and social hubris. By seeking to protect its gains, perpetuate itself and make its wealth hereditary, power elites lock in their position in ways that exclude and injure those below. Turning government into an oligarchy, the wealthy indebt and shift the tax burden onto the less powerful. It is an ancient tale. The Greeks got matters right in seeing how power leads to hubris, bringing about its own downfall. Hubris ...