Michael Hudson
Michael Hudson
oil fire people
Debt deflation is when there's less money that people have to spend out of their paychecks on goods and services, because they're paying the FIRE sector. Oil going down is a function of the supply and demand of oil in the market. It's a separate phenomenon.
oil water choices
You have a choice. Either you can have more oil, or more clean water. Fracking is not good for the water supply.
talking oil cost
Oil now, as a result of the Saudi production, is priced so low that there are not going to be new fracking investments made. A lot of companies that have gone into fracking are heavily debt-leveraged, and are beginning to default on their loans. The next wave of defaults that banks are talking about is probably going to be in the fracking industry. When the costs of production are so much more than they can end up getting for the oil, they just stop producing and stop paying their loans.
oil saudi-arabia fracking
High prices can be the result of speculation, and maybe plunging prices can be attributed to the end of speculation, but low prices over time aren't caused by speculation. That's oversupply, mainly by Saudi Arabia flooding the market with low-priced oil to discourage rival oil producers, whether it's Russian oil or American fracking.
income debt goods
Paying debt service to banks leaves less income to buy goods and services.
today asia becoming
if you increase living standards you make labor more productive. This is why Asia today is becoming more productive than the United States.
fracking economy
Nothing could be better for the economy than to get rid of fracking.
united-states use bills
The vast majority of $100 bills are abroad, not in the United States. So yes, of course there's a use here but nowhere near as much as there's a use for $100 bills abroad.
drinking wine years
This is not really currency that circulates. It's like the old joke about expensive vintage wine. Wine prices will go up and once in a while somebody will buy a 50-year-old bottle of wine and say, "Wait a minute. This has gone bad." The answer is, "Well, that wine isn't for drinking; that's for trading." These $100 bills aren't meant to circulate. They're not to spend on goods and services. They're a store of value. They're a form of saving.
debt pay interest
As you have to pay more interest and amortization on what you owe, you're left with less and less money to buy goods and services - unless you borrow even more and go further into debt.
promise mark free-money
The one sure mark of a con, though, is the promise of free money.
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.
recovery people
There really isn't a recovery, and no signs of it on the horizon, because people have to pay the banks. It's a vicious circle - or rather, a downward spiral.
recovery
We're still in the collapse that began after 2008. There's not a new collapse, there hasn't been a recovery.