Michael Hudson
Michael Hudson
moving mean thinking
Now, suppose that a homeowner puts down only 3% of their own money or 3.5% for the FHA. That means if prices go down by only 3%, the house will be in negative equity and it would pay the homeowner just to walk away and say, "The house now is worth less than the mortgage I owe. I think I'm just going to move out and buy a cheaper house." So it's very risky when you have only a 3% or 3.5% equity for the loan. The bank really isn't left with much cushion as collateral.
running thinking two
There are two definitions of deflation. Most people think of it simply as prices going down. But debt deflation is what happens when people have to spend more and more of their income to carry the debts that they've run up - to pay their mortgage debt, to pay the credit card debt, to pay student loans.
safe-haven thinking russia
The United States is pushing as policy division of the world into rival currency camps - the dollar area on the one hand, and the Russia-Chinese-Shanghai Cooperation Organization group on the other, especially now that the IMF has changed its rules. People think that if there are rival currency groupings and national currencies are going bust, we might as well use gold as a safe haven.
thinking government needs
I don't think that governments should permit speculation in raw materials, because they're what the economy basically needs.
thinking fracking economy
I think the less fracking there is, the better it is for the economy and society.
country real thinking
Most people think of the economy as producing goods and services and paying labor to buy what it produces. But a growing part of the economy in every country has been the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which comprises the rent and interest paid to the economy's balance sheet of assets by debtors and rent payers.
thinking people drug
I think something like three-quarters of American currency is held abroad, by drug dealers, by tax evaders, Russians and Chinese. Other people think that they want to protect themselves against their own currency going down. When you have 75% of the currency and even more of the high-denomination $100 bills held abroad, you wonder whether these are people we really want to pay. If you get rid of the $100 bills, its foreign holders will be the main losers.
running thinking may
I think we're in the take-the-money-and-run stage of the economy. So the banks may go under, but the bankers, who make the policy, clean up.
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.
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.
thinking clothes car
People tend to think that paying a debt is like going out and buying a car, buying more food or buying more clothes. But it really isn't. When you pay a debt to the bank, the banks use this money to lend out to somebody else or to yourself. The interest charges to carry this debt go up and up as debt grows.
corner forces lebanon others seriously sufficient supporters turn unlikely
Certainly, anti-Syrian forces in Lebanon feel on the defensive, nervous, frightened, depressed. The Syrians may be out in one way, but in others they're always right around the corner and have sufficient friends and supporters in Lebanon that make it unlikely it will turn into a seriously anti-Syrian place.
among construct difficult government iraqi military militia security situation tainted
It's very difficult for the Iraqi government to govern because the security situation is still very unstable. Among the most pressing problems, the most pressing is to try to construct a military and security bureaucracy that is not essentially tainted by militias or militia loyalties.
adam avoiding banks care central debts dollar foreign fund government health intend paying pension private repay smith trillion
They're never going to be repaid. Adam Smith said that no government had ever repaid its debts and the same can be said of the private sector. The U.S. government does not intend to repay its trillion dollar debt to foreign central banks and, even if it did intend to, there's no way in which it could. Most of the corporations now are avoiding paying their pension fund debts and their health care debts.