Michael Hudson
Michael Hudson
recovery
We're still in the collapse that began after 2008. There's not a new collapse, there hasn't been a recovery.
people making-money business-plan
Most banks - with Deutsche Bank at the top of the spectrum here - have decided that they can't make money lending to barrowers anymore, so they're going to the second business plan: They lend money to casino capitalists. That is, to people who want to gamble on derivatives.
real loser winner
A derivative is a bet on whether a stock, or a bond or a real estate asset, is going to go up or down. There's a winner and a loser. It's like betting on a horserace.
world killing betting
What's the best gamble in the world, right now? Its betting that Deutsche Bank stock is going to go down. Short sellers borrowed money from their banks to place bets that Deutsche Bank stock is going to go down. Now, it's wringing its hands and saying, "Oh the speculators are killing us." But it's Deutsche Bank and the other banks that are providing the money to the speculators to bet on credit.
thinking simple taxes
You have to abolish pension plans. You have to abolish social spending. You have to raise taxes. You have to have at least fifty percent of the European population emigrate, either to Russia or China. You would have to have mass starvation. Very simple. That's the price that the Eurozone thinks is well worth paying.
simple leader slavery
You'll have to have the governments sell off all of their public domains; sell off their railroads, sell off their public land. You'll essentially have to introduce neo-feudalism. You'll have to roll the clock of history back a thousand years, and reduce the European population to debt slavery. It's as simple a solution as the Eurozone has imposed on Greece. And it's a solution that the leaders and the banks are urging for responsible economists to promote for the population at large.
Small banks that lend to consumers are fine.
promise economy
Every government, from the Obama administration right through to Angela Merkel, the Eurozone and the IMF, promise to save the banks, not the economy.
trying financial mathematics
No price is too high to pay to try to make the financial system go on a little bit longer. But ultimately it can't be saved, because of the mathematics that are involved.
enough hiring
The companies aren't hiring, because consumers don't have enough money to buy the goods and services.
fairytale rich economist
In order to be an economist these days, you have to participate in this fairytale that somehow we can recover and still make the banks rich. And it is a fairytale.
opportunity sick care
Seventy-eight percent of millennials are worried about not having enough good paying job opportunity to pay off their student loans. Seventy-four percent can't pay the health care if they get sick. Seventy-nine percent don't have enough money to live when they retire. So, already, we're having a whole generation that's coming on, not only here but also in Europe, that isn't able to get good-paying jobs.
mean negative enough
Wages for the ninety-nine percent have gone down, steadily, since 2008. They've gone down especially for the bottom twenty-five percent of the population. This means that they've gone down especially for Blacks and Hispanics and other blue-collar workers. Their net worth has actually turned negative, and they don't have enough money to get by.
recovery thinking people
People think of a business cycle, which is a boom followed by a recession and then automatic stabilizers revive the economy. But this time we can't revive. The reason is that every recovery since 1945 has begun with a higher, and higher level of debt. The debt is so high now, that since 2008 we've been in what I call, debt deflation.