An Overview – Welcome Words

My friend and colleague Paul Craig Roberts had this to say: For Economic Truth Turn To Michael Hudson Paul Craig Roberts Readers ask me how they can learn economics, what books to read, what university economics departments to trust. I receive so many requests that it is impossible to reply individually. Here is my answer. There is only one way to learn economics, and that is to read Michael Hudson’s books. It is not an easy task. You will need a glossary of terms. In some of Hudson’s books, if memory serves, he provides a glossary, and his recent book “J Is for Junk Economics” defines the classical economic terms that he uses. You will also need patience, because Hudson sometimes forgets in his explanations that the rest of us don’t know what he ...

Socialism, Land and Banking: 2017 compared to 1917

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An article written for the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, to be read in Beijing today. Socialism a century ago seemed to be the wave of the future. There were various schools of socialism, but the common ideal was to guarantee support for basic needs, and for state ownership to free society from landlords, predatory banking and monopolies. In the West these hopes are now much further away than they seemed in 1917. Land and natural resources, basic infrastructure monopolies, health care and pensions have been increasingly privatized and financialized. Instead of Germany and other advanced industrial nations leading the way as expected, Russia’s October 1917 Revolution made the greatest leap. But the failures of Stalinism became an argument against Marxism – guilt-by-association with Soviet bureaucracy. European parties calling themselves ...

The Brexit Silence

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As published on Counterpunch The media in the United States have treated the British vote against remaining in the European Union (EU) as if it is populist “Trumpism,” an inarticulate right-wing vote out of ignorance at being left behind by the neoliberal economic growth policy. The fact that Donald Trump happened to be in Scotland to promote his golf course helped frame the U.S. story that depicts the Brexit vote as a “Trump vs. Hillary” psychodrama – populist anger and resentment vs. intelligent policy. What is left out of this picture is that there is a sound logic to oppose membership in the EU. It is Nigel Farage’s slogan, “Take Back Control.” The question is, from whom? Not only from “bureaucrats,” but from the pro-bank, anti-labor rules written into the eurozone’s Lisbon and ...

EU Bankster Contagion

An interview with Chris Hedges on Truth Dig. Chris Hedges: 2008 All Over Again Summary: Great Britain’s decision to leave the EU presages a global financial meltdown that could resemble the 1930s. Banks will demand massive bailouts. We will be forced, if the banks are bailed out again, to endure harsher austerity and a prolonged depression. Great Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has wiped out many bankers and global speculators. They will turn, as they did in 2008, to governments to rescue them from default. Most governments, including ours, will probably comply. Will the American public passively permit another massive bailout of the banks? Will it accept more punishing programs of austerity to pay for this bailout? Will a viable socialism rise out of the economic chaos ...

Neoliberalism lowers life expectancy

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"Millions Around the World Fleeing from Neoliberal Policy", The Real News Network, June 6, 2016. Economist Michael Hudson says neoliberal policy will pressure U.S. citizens to emigrate, just as it caused millions to leave Russia, the Baltic States, and now Greece in search of a better life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfh6fk3XAQY A research team from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York estimates 875,000 deaths in the United States in year 2000 could be attributed to social factors related to poverty and income inequality. According to U.S. government statistics, 2.45 million Americans died in the same year. When compared to the Columbia research team's finding, social deprivation could account for some 36% of the total deaths in 2000. "Almost all of the British economists of the late 18th century said when you have ...

EU Infrastructure Undermines Sovereignty

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The Financial Attack on Greece: Where To From Here? The major financial problem tearing economies apart over the past century has lain more with official inter-governmental debt than with private-sector debt. That is why the global economy today faces a similar breakdown to 1929-31, when it became apparent that the volume of official inter-government debts could not be paid. The Versailles Treaty had imposed impossibly high reparations demands on Germany, and the United States imposed equally destructive demands on the Allies to use their reparations receipts to pay World War I arms debts to the U.S. Government. Legal procedures are well established to cope with corporate and personal bankruptcy. Courts write down personal and business debts either under “debtor in control” procedures or foreclosure, and creditors take a loss on loans ...

Pipeline Politics

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Interview on the Real News. Visit their page to watch it. Sharing disabled. The Hudson Report: Europe's effort to join the US in isolating Russia has backfired, it makes no sense to build an oil and gas pipeline for Russian exports that would be owned and leased to them by the US and Europe. SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore. President Vladimir Putin is canceling his oil and gas pipeline to Europe. To discuss why is our regular guest Michael Hudson. Michael is distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His latest books are The Bubble and Beyond and Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents. Michael, so explain to us why this cancellation is taking place. MICHAEL HUDSON, PROF. ...

Russian Pivot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nflZSjiofr8 SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore. President Vladimir Putin is on his way to India to discuss a gas and arms deal. Last week, he was in Turkey talking about diverting what was to be a South Stream pipeline away from Southern Europe to Turkey. At the APEC summit, he was squaring off deals with China for oil and gas. It is clear that Russia is pivoting to Eurasia. Here to discuss all of this is our regular guest Michael Hudson. Michael Hudson is distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. ...

The Koch Brothers’ Governors

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Butlers Selling the Public’s Silver…. A Dress Rehearsal for Hillary? by Jeffrey Sommers & Michael Hudson The Koch Brothers are the closest thing the United States has to Russia’s oligarchs. They fuse ownership of the economy and state, using the latter to enrich themselves while making private gains through the public’s losses. Their idea of a “market economy” is to buy government officials and the assets they privatize at giveaway prices. The top three butlers at the Koch’s nouveau riche ‘Downton Abbey’ are Governors Sam Brownback of Kansas, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, and Chris Christie of New Jersey. All three ran elections based on the anti-Keynesian oxymoron of promoting job creation by balancing budgets with regressive tax plans. All declared that cutting taxes (chiefly on their wealthy campaign contributors) was the way to achieve their ...

Backfired!

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U.S. New Cold War policy has backfired – and created its worst nightmare 1. The world’s geopolitics, major trade patterns and military alliances have changed radically in the past month. Russia has re-oriented its gas and oil trade, and also its trade in military technology, away from Europe toward Eurasia. The result is the opposite of America’s hope for the past half-century of dividing and conquering Eurasia: setting Russia against China, isolating Iran, and preventing India, the Near East and other Asian countries from joining together to create an alternative to the U.S. dollar area. American sanctions and New Cold War policy has driven these Asian countries together in association with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an alternative to NATO, and in the BRICS moves to avoid dealing with the dollar ...