An Autobiographical on Economic Rent and Exploitation

Settle in for this interview. Michael Hudson, Shepheard Walwyn recording May 23, 2022 Part one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDo7HykYN9k Part two here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-xWgLertkg Jonathan Brown Michael, welcome to the podcast. Michael Hudson It's good to be here. I'm looking forward to it. Jonathan Brown Michael, I think you have one the most extraordinary upbringings and journeys into economics. And I just wanted to give our listeners just some sense of how you got from being the godson of Leon Trotsky all the way to what I consider to be probably the most important economist in the world today. Michael Hudson 00:23 There’s no direct causality there that could have been anticipated. I never studied economics in college, because I went to school at the University of Chicago. We know that there were some students at the university who were at that business school. ...

Calling to Account the Hereditary Warrior Class

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlUSqQ8U8T8 Transcript BENJAMIN NORTON: Hey, everyone. I’m Ben Norton, and this is the Multipolarista podcast. And I have the great pleasure of being joined today by one of my favorite guests, one of I think the most important economists in the world today. I’m speaking with Professor Michael Hudson. If you’ve seen any of the interviews I’ve done with Professor Hudson over the past few years, you probably know that he’s a brilliant analyst. He always has, I think, the best analysis to understand what’s going on economically and also politically, geopolitically, in the world today. And right now is, I think, a very important moment to have Professor Hudson on today. We’re going to talk about the economic war on Russia and the process of economic decoupling between Russia and China and the ...

Living with Price Above Value

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1L3FQDmYSjI An interview with the Positive Penger group. Jussi: So welcome all and welcome Michael. Good to have you here again. How are you? Hudson: It’s good to be back. Jussi: Our pleasure as usual. Let me just introduce you shortly first. I think most people know quite a lot about you. I’ll make it short. You have been an advisor to governments, warned correctly about the debt crisis in Latin America and the great financial crisis 2008. You worked on Wall Street as an economist. One of your assignments was to calculate how much it was possible to indebt Latin American countries so all their export income was used to pay interest on loans. Another way to put it, how much can you put these countries in debt. As an associate ...

Finance Capitalism versus Industrial Capitalism: The Rentier Resurgence and Takeover

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Published by Sage Journals Abstract Marx and many of his less radical contemporary reformers saw the historical role of industrial capitalism as being to clear away the legacy of feudalism—the landlords, bankers, and monopolists extracting economic rent without producing real value. However, that reform movement failed. Today, the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector has regained control of government, creating neo-rentier economies. The aim of this postindustrial finance capitalism is the opposite of industrial capitalism as known to nineteenth-century economists: it seeks wealth primarily through the extraction of economic rent, not industrial capital formation. Tax favoritism for real estate, privatization of oil and mineral extraction, and banking and infrastructure monopolies add to the cost of living and doing business. Labor is increasingly exploited by bank debt, student debt, and credit card ...

Asset-Price Inflation and Rent Seeking

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A Total-Returns Profile of Economic Polarization in America Michael Hudson Based on work with Dirk Bezemer, with charts by Howard Reed Polarization in America, 23 September 2019 “More than half of all Americans feel pressure and strain, according to the April 2019 Global Emotions Report published by Gallup. Most (55%) Americans recall feeling stressed much of the day in 2018. That’s more than in all but three countries globally. Nearly half of Americans felt worried (45%) and more than a fifth (22%) felt angry. ‘Even as their economy roared, more Americas were stressed, angry and worried last year than they have been at many points during the last decade,’ Julie Ray, a Gallup editor, wrote in the summary report.” USA Today, April 26, 2019 “For me the relevant issue isn't what I report on the bottom ...

Traumatized Worker Syndrome

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CHRIS HEDGES: Hi, I’m Chris Hedges. Welcome to Days of Revolt. Today we're going to carry out part two of my discussion about where we’re headed economically, with economist Michael Hudson. He’s worked on Wall Street, taught economics, and is the author of Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy. Welcome, Michael. (Part One - The inversion of Classical Economics) MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s good to be here. HEDGES: So, we spoke in the first segment about the parasitic quality of the banks, hedge funds and the speculative class that has in essence cannibalized the country – including, interestingly, industry itself, and forced down the throats of the American public an unsustainable debt peonage, whether that’s through student loans, predatory credit card interest rates where it’s that bait and ...

The National Interest

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James Carden, “Bretton Woods: The Real Threat to Ukraine's Sovereignty?” The National Interest, February 2, 2015. Tom Friedman and George Soros believe Russia is the greatest threat to Ukraine. History suggests the IMF may be far more dangerous. When politicos and pundits wander off onto some half-baked historical analogy, it more often than not will have to do with comparing this or that current event to (if bad) Munich or (if very bad) 9/11. If the event is praiseworthy, it is likely be compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall or VE Day. When a politician as peripatetic as Mrs. Clinton does it, as when she compared Vladimir Putin to Adolph Hitler last March, one could reasonably enough chalk it up to fatigue. It is quite another thing, however, when a ...

Think Tank Memories

Think Tanks Blow Public Opinion: Prof Michael Hudson on the most influential US think tanks by Renegadeeconomists on Mixcloud Subscribe to the weekly Renegade Economists podcast Transcript Renegade Economists October 1, 2014: DOUBLETHINK TANKS, TAR SANDS, WATER & IMPERIALISM. Karl Fitzgerald: This week on the Renegade Economists we’re joined by Professor Michael Hudson, the author of The Bubble & Beyond, Super Imperialism, and a host of other books. You can read his work at www.Michael-Hudson.com. Certainly our favourite guest here on the Renegade Economists and Michael, today we’re going to have a look at the role of think tanks in sculpting the American mind and the public policy that flows from that. What’s your take on the role of think tanks in American economic history? Michael Hudson: Well, today they’ve become basically public ...

Piketty vs. the Classical Economic Reformers

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As published in the Real World Economics Review #69 - Special issue on Piketty’s Capital Thomas Piketty has done a great service in collating the data of many countries to quantify the ebb and flow of their distribution of wealth and income. For hundreds of pages and tables, his measurements confirm what most people sense without needing statistical proof. Across the globe the top 1% have increased their share of wealth and income to the steepest extreme since the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th century. The Federal Reserve’s 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances shows that economic polarization has accelerated since the 2008 crash. The 0.1% of Americans have pulled even further ahead of the rest of the 1%, who in turn have widened their gains over the remainder ...

Ukraine: Bureaucratic Bliss

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More at The Real News Transcript WORONCZUK: So, Michael, let's talk about the economic association agreement that Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine signed with the E.U. last week. Let's get a sense of what are the details of the agreement. And how does this differ from--let's say, in economic terms, from a full-fledged membership with the E.U.? HUDSON: Well, I'm going to begin by putting it in the big picture, and then I'll get to the details. The big picture is that this is a form of colonialism almost identical to what Europe did in Africa and Latin America and the Near East. What it did in the 19th century in Africa, where property was owned communally, was it would go to the chieftains of a given tribe, as it did to ...