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Michael Hudson 40 posts 0 comments
Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (1968 & 2003). Michael acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide including Iceland, Latvia and China on finance and tax law. He gives presentations on various topics at conferences and meetings.
A common denominator runs throughout recorded history: a rising proportion of debts cannot be paid. Adam Smith remarked that no government ever had repaid its debt, and today the same can be said of the overall volume of private-sector…
The Giant 21st Century Asset Grab
The financial plan is basically an asset grab. They want to load the whole economy down with debt. A consumer will come in and say, I’d like to take out a loan. They’ll say, how much do you earn? Everything over subsistence they’ll want as…
Banking Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This
the banks now browbeat governments – not by having ready cash but by threatening to go bust and drag the economy down with them if they are not given control of public tax policy, spending and planning. The process has gone furthest in the…
Geithner’s Ploy: Saving U.S. Banks at Taxpayer Expense, Once Again
Mr. Obama’s Secretary Geithner went to Europe met with EU leaders to demand that Greece make the write-downs voluntary on the part of banks and creditors. He explained that U.S. banks had bet that Greece would not default – and their net…
Europe’s Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy
This appropriation of the economic surplus to pay bankers is turning the traditional values of most Europeans upside down. Imposition of economic austerity, dismantling social spending, sell-offs of public assets, de-unionization of labor,…
Debt and Democracy: Has the Link been Broken?
Debt and Democracy: Has the Link been Broken?
Debt Deflation on the rise
“Without consumption, markets are going to shrink. Companies won’t invest, stores will close, “for rent” signs will spread on the main streets and local tax revenues will fall. Companies will lay off their employees and the economy will…
Iceland’s Fair Value Vultures
The country is now suffering a second round of economic and financial distress stemming from the collapse of its banking system in October 2008. That crisis caused a huge loss of savings not only for domestic citizens but also for…
EU: Democracy Incompatible with Debt Collection
"Yesterday, the headline in the Frankfurter Zeitung was “Democracy is Junk.” The meaning was the financial sector was saying that democracy is incompatible with collecting debts and, when debtors can’t pay, with foreclosing on the public…
Consent Needed for Debt Repayments
What people don’t realize is that what happened in Iceland has been used as a test case for what’s happening in Greece and what’s happening in Europe, and maybe what happens in the United States