Michael Hudson
Michael Hudson
wall engineering people
The underlying strategy of the Fed is to tell people, "Do you want your money to lose value in the bank, or do you want to put it in the stock market?" They're trying to push money into the stock market, into hedge funds, to temporarily bid up prices. Then, all of a sudden, the Fed can raise interest rates, let the stock market prices collapse and the people will lose even more in the stock market than they would have by the negative interest rates in the bank. So it's a pro-Wall Street financial engineering gimmick.
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.
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.
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.
safe-haven people gold
There are so many currency exchange rate problems that people are buying gold as a safe haven. Right now, gold looks like a safe haven if international exchange rates break down.